2.17.18

I am at my grandma and grandpa Powers’ house sitting on one of the easy chairs in the living room. My immediate family is here with me. Molly is sitting in a chair next to me holding our child in her arms. She passes our child to me and I cradle it against my chest. The strange thing is that it is only the size of my fist. Folds and folds of skin roll over its hairless body. Its head is tiny. Its impossible to determine its sex. As it struggles to command its neck muscles to look up at me I see that its eyes are clouded over, as if it has cataracts. I think, “but this is a newborn baby mole.” Nevertheless I hold it in my arms like it were more precious than anything I’ve known. I look up briefly and feel something stir in my lap. I look down and see a black and white long-haired cat standing in the place of my mole-child. I look around frantically for it and run into the back room. “The cat! The cat must have grabbed the baby and took it somewhere!” Strangely, I am the only one so concerned about what has happened. I crumble onto my hands and knees and desperately search for the mole-baby. The landscape has transformed. The floor is a dusty terrain filled with small dangerous creatures. I see snakes, cats, and rat-like things. Where could our baby be? I weave past hissing snakes, spitting cats but I don’t see our baby anywhere. Why is no one else helping me? The search goes on for a long time but my hope diminishes as the harshness of this terrain sinks in. There is no way it survived, wherever it is. I stand and return to the living room. Matt Bobo is there. He says, “I’m surprised that you were so bothered by this.” He’s surprised I’m bothered by the abduction of my child? Molly also appears nonplussed. “We’ll just have to make another one,” she says. What an awful thing. It’s hard to imagine starting back at scratch with this.

Later, I am in a huge building, almost like a hotel. A formal gathering of some kind is going on in front of a large doorway. I see that it is Donald Trump and a few other of his lackeys. Seeing the way blocked, I move on down the hallway but then a sound catches my attention. I hear that Trump and the others there are playing and singing one of my songs, “The Forest.” Enraged, I go back to where they are gathered and interrupt the performance. “That’s my song! They’re playing my song!” Donald Trump just stares at me, as if waiting for some kind of cue from myself. The rest of his lackeys do the same. “Tell them that that is my song!” They do nothing.