Left Of Center, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Don’t ask me how I ended up
Left of center west of Adelaide
It was a concoction of my R.E.M.
Something my slumber had made

The traffic just wasn’t right
I had just left my dorm room
Trying to call my mother at night
The cockroaches gave me a fright

I had no money, my passport gone
I found myself wondering the streets
Looking for help, what went wrong
9 thousand miles away, how did I go astray?

I was worried what my mother would say
I knew her panic would never go away
If she couldn’t contact me this very day
I was desperate to get to her, had to find a way

Then suddenly on the side of the road
A family in opposite traffic walking their dog
I waved at them with tears in my eyes
I explained to them I didn’t know why

Didn’t know why I ended up here
Left of center, west of Adelaide
They lead me to their home, I had made
I asked them about the creatures on the way

The scary ones that could kill me any day
Like the spiders and snakes, oddly enough
I wasn’t worried about the salt water crocs
I have heard of the jellyfish in the shape of a box

They told me I had nothing to fear
That the danger wasn’t that near
But this movie suddenly became foggy
My restlessness made me groggy

Where was a phone, a phone, a phone
I wanted to call home, my home, my mom
Suddenly it was all gone, all gone, all gone
The reality of daylight’s dawn

Kelly stirring in her crate, breakfast wont be late
Her brother insistent too, their meal overdue
I had to take the trash out too
This oddity, Odyssey, sadly finally through.

Mom, mom, mom, I wish I could talk to you.
(end)

I had a dream where I woke up in a college dorm room full of cockroaches, don’t ask me why. I fled outside and found myself somewhere in Australia, but couldn’t figure out where. In reality I have been to Australia, just not Adelaide. But in this dream I kept on asking people where I was, and they kept on saying I was slightly west of Adelaide. I was also worried about getting a hold of my mom because I didn’t want her to worry. In real life my mom would get worried if I didn’t call her the instant I got home.

So in this dream I panic about the dangerous animals as the family is guiding me back to their house. In reality animals don’t bother you unless you go looking for trouble. So finally we get to the house, and I start hearing rustling in a cage, and in reality it was Kelly trying to wake me up because she wanted out of her carrier, and her brother Anneplath was making noise too. Today is trash day too. So I never did get to talk to my mom in the dream. When I woke up, it made me sad knowing she has been gone for 6 years.

The city of Adelaide is at the bottom of Australia not quite the center of the country.