Down the dark hall
Floor sloping ever down
Turn about hoping to
Go back up and out
Against all reason
It still tips down
Hear the monster
Restlessly waiting down there
Smell its scent of decay
See no hope of escape
A decision to make
Fight a way out or
Scream for rescue
Or go down, down, down
And embrace the monster
Let it dine on your mind
Let it suck out hope and love
One small spark is in the darkness
A question: How long, how long
Until the Prozac kicks in?

Bob Wertzler is retired from almost twenty years in the mental health field in California and Arizona. There are times the title, “Recovering Therapist”, seems to fit. In 2006 he retired to move to Western North Carolina to help and become primary care giver for his father who had developed Dementia. Before all that, there was work at various times as a soldier (US Army 1967-70), community organizer, cab driver, welfare case worker, wooden toy maker, carpenter, warehouse worker, and other things. He relates to a line in a Grateful Dead song, “What a long, strange trip its been.”