The first time I tried acid,

I felt like I was pissing myself the whole night

like one of those sprinklers

watering a suburban lawn,

yellow sunbeams flying out of my pants;

I’d sprung leaks all over.

I smiled a banana smile

that stretched past my cheeks

and into the atmosphere

floating around my glowing head,

and that piece of pizza

I was trying to eat

was the funniest thing I’d ever seen:

a cartoon pizza

with pepperonis like moon craters,

a real revelation.

The next morning,

the trees were made of neon plastic.

I could see past everything

and into its fakeness

like a waking dream

inside of a cardboard diorama.

The birds outside my window

were screaming in my ear,

telling me I’d never be the same again

like Adam biting into an apple.

The next time,

someone had read an article

written by Tim Leary

and decided to close all the doors

and shutter all the windows,

duct tape the holes where light got in

to create a nothingness

ripe for creation

I willed myself out of existence

like a popped balloon.

I saw ashes floating on my eyelids,

opened my eyes to see nothing,

closed my eyes to see the same nothing,

and I was gone.

I screamed a dead man’s nightmare.

The lights flashed on.

My friends wore concern

like business suits.

I told them I was dead,

then closed my eyes into Heaven

where I watched the outlines of angels

fly circles through the holes in my brain.

I’d found Nirvana;

it was a counterfeit enlightenment.

The next time,

I saw a horse jump out of the television

and was taken on a zeppelin

to see God.

He was a giant robot

and scores of people

inside His juggernaut body

were standing on networks of ladders,

hammering out dents

in his metal skin.

We sat at a white plastic table

and He told me that

everything had already been done.

He opened his chest

like a dusty old book

and I jumped in.

I saw people searching shelves

in an ancient library.

I picked up a book and it was empty,

its pages like crumbling mud.

I tried another;

it was also empty.

The books were empty ad infinitum.

Language had disappeared from the world.

When I found myself,

I was lying in the grass

and the sun was rolling over me

like a steamroller;

it was like a massive yellow womb.

I convinced myself

that I was the last person alive on Earth

and walked towards the boundary

of my friend’s backyard.

My friend pulled me by my arm

like a worried parent.

I could see it happening

a million times over

in the kaleidoscope of time and space.

His mom drove me home in her minivan.

I told my parents I’d had a heat stroke

working beneath the summer sun,

but it wasn’t me talking;

I was no longer there.

I’d left the building.

Every time after that,

people were like zombie lizards,

their faces melting into darkness,

and I heard angels crying

like mourners at a funeral,

so I gave up on my dead end search.

My mind was like confused geese

trying to migrate,

but disappearing over the waves

beneath the twilight stars.

The dream wore off day by day

as time unrolled like a roll of duct tape.

I found the remaining shards of my mind

like a broken windowpane,

pieced them together

into something I could use,

and tried to blend in

like an undercover cop

who’d peeked behind the curtain

and could tell no one what he’d seen,

fearing he’d blow his cover.

you only eat Burger King

at 12:03am on Tuesday nights

under flickering, broken street lights

in the parking lot

where you're crying

about something

you could have easily

changed the outcome of

the night is suffocating

that summer stillness

crickets clicking, mimicking your heaving

greasy breezes gently caressing your vehicle

like parasitic demons

it's a hellish dream you can't wake up from

realized only in the subconscious

in this metal contraption you are inside of

at midnight you turn to stone

the burger you ate

flipped until golden brown

is now a memory to be forgotten about

except in your stomach

where acid will break it down

at least you hope it will

for you, are not a king at all

just a jester failing to do its job

These hands, she fills them.

Delicate china,

held by the bull.

Hummingbird feathers

and hollow scrimshaw

decorate the labyrinth,

But she remains unbroken,

bending, instead,

lifting, pulling, pushing us

ever skyward.

The burden too heavy,

clouds too far,

slipping grips and crushing

weights, I fell and I'm fallen.

She moves up,

she moves on,

and I mourn.

I will welcome my Theseus.

on the counter is the mug with the chipped handle and a ring from the cup of ice water that I poured in the orchids, there is really only one orchid, but it felt better than saying that I split it with the monstera, that night I will not sleep, the bedroom door is painted in three parts Bit O Sugar and one part Lamb’s Skin with two packets of glitter to remind myself that I love the sunlight, the idea will clog up behind my eyelids, twinkle against the worry that I might forget these thoughts by morning, and both will coalesce with the sound of the fan and the sound of the wind, and I will bolt up from almost sleep and remember that there is a light I forgot in the violet room, it will be bouncing off the mirror, I will pretend to sleep, and the black sheets will pretend to be satin, there is still packing to do for the weekend, the floors are not swept, this is most likely not a poem, but you’re reading it, and I wait for my coffee with a headache

They gather in front of the house just before midnight on the first Wednesday of every month, their hair bed-tousled and their eyes still sandy with sleep. They greet one another with a kiss on the cheek, too tired for much talking. They stand on the dark lawn, shivering in their night dresses and cotton pajamas, waiting for their host to let them in.

As soon as the clock strikes twelve, the door of the house springs open and they're beckoned inside. Steaming mugs of coffee and tea are passed around and the warmth and light and caffeine energizes them immediately. They are led down a hall, into a dining room, and seated at a long table laden with food.

There are vats of orange and grapefruit juice, triangles of toast slathered in butter. Pots of honey and jam sit alongside horns of plenty filled with pastries. There are towers of pancakes and French toast, the layers wedged with fresh cream and berries. There are milky bowls of porridge with all of the mix-ins: honey, nuts, dried fruit, sugar, and cinnamon.

At the far end of the table is a bagel station with a variety of cream cheeses, plates of bacon ranging in degree of crispiness, eggs boiled, scrambled, sunny-side up, and over easy. There are blistered-skin sausages, cheesy grits, baked beans, and fried tomatoes.

Napkins and utensils are distributed and, with a single nod from the host, the 23rd meeting of the Midnight Breakfast Society begins.

I still don't know who had faith in who. He, who held on for years through trying mental illness. She, who stayed in a crushing marriage long after all other family had left him. Often, it seemed she held a desperate belief in the temporary nature of humanity strong enough for the both of them. Mornings dragged on in an endless sea of sameness; they began as early as the devil's hour and fell forward in bouts of shouting, tears, spilled medication and frantic pacing. During particularly interesting weeks, nights ended in police sirens and the cold lights of the emergency room lobby. Life hit quiet spells after incidents like those. Groceries were purchased with untensed shoulders, cell phones remained silent, and we kids voluntarily came home earlier from sports, music lessons, and friend's homes. I still remember running through parking lots in sandals, refusing to enter my father's car, wondering whether whether this last scandal did or did not fall under the category of abuse, and whether or not I could trust that he was still there, still fighting-- I, for one, struggled to hold faith. In the aftermath of years of slow, staggered healing, our house filled with silence. The bloodstains on the textured drywall have long since washed off, but many of the dark spots, where hands and bodies passed over the same surface again and again and again in those wee morning hours, remain. Rarely is the past discussed, perhaps by nature of what faith we had in the future-- it was a hope grounded in nonstop movement, when to stop was to sink, to crumble, to fade into those dreary stains and succumb to the anxiety of endless repetition. Perhaps this is what we have been charged with, our own special version of penance for the piecemeal artwork we tried to pass as family, as trust, as strength. Perhaps this was the cost of the credence embedded in those ill-fitting wedding bands still buried in her sock drawer: a permanent inability to ever truly sort out beauty from pain, truth from lies, or success from failure. Those years of fealty remain sprawled out in the shadows of closets, under beds, and the hidden corners of our home, squirreled together like heaps of living question marks. Though golden hour settles slowly through the windows again, no longer dimmed by the lurking darkness of that incurable, invisible sickness, a hundred what-ifs and if-thens remain unanswered, gagged by the very strength that carried them both to the surface from those suffocating depths.

#prose #non-fiction