Hey, it's slowdown producer Micah.

For today's guest episode, we welcome into the host chair poet and editor Leslie Signs.

Don't worry, Major will be back in your feeds on July 1st. I'm Leslie Signs, and this is the slowdown.

I'm Leslie Signs,

and this is the slowdown.

If I were to take

if I were to take my dreams at face value, to interpret them literally with no regard for

symbolism or the way mitigating factors like stress, insomnia, or even diet contribute to my imaginative subconscious.

I would believe that I have never, not once, moved on from any of my past relationships.

In the last year, my sleeping mind has begun constructing the most visceral,

inane occasions in which I am cast opposite all my casual flings and ex-lovers alike.

Their silhouettes somehow sharper and more blurred than my waking mind can even recall.

They hover, as phantoms like to do, but I think of them more like pop-up targets in an arcade shooter,

stiff and obstructive, threatening,

and mostly indistinguishable,

figures designed to increase the heart rate.

Part of me is inclined to blame this phenomenon on the Cosmos,

the way the sky looked at the moment of my birth.

If you're curious, my son is in Gemini, as is my Venus.

Another part of me suspects that I'm simply a glutton for words of affirmation.

Maybe these aren't so mutually exclusive.

Either way, these dreams, which occur at least once a week, follow the same script.

...