This poem was previously published in Gargoyle Magazine, an awesome publication which you should most definitely purchase and read. Find the most recent issue here.
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.
that stretched past my cheeks
floating around my glowing head,
was the funniest thing I’d ever seen:
with pepperonis like moon craters,
the trees were made of neon plastic.
I could see past everything
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.
someone had read an article
and decided to close all the doors
and shutter all the windows,
duct tape the holes where light got in
I willed myself out of existence
I saw ashes floating on my eyelids,
opened my eyes to see nothing,
closed my eyes to see the same nothing,
I screamed a dead man’s nightmare.
then closed my eyes into Heaven
where I watched the outlines of angels
fly circles through the holes in my brain.
it was a counterfeit enlightenment.
I saw a horse jump out of the television
and was taken on a zeppelin
inside His juggernaut body
were standing on networks of ladders,
We sat at a white plastic table
everything had already been done.
I saw people searching shelves
I picked up a book and it was empty,
its pages like crumbling mud.
The books were empty ad infinitum.
Language had disappeared from the world.
and the sun was rolling over me
it was like a massive yellow womb.
that I was the last person alive on Earth
and walked towards the boundary
My friend pulled me by my arm
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;
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
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,
into something I could use,
who’d peeked behind the curtain
and could tell no one what he’d seen,
fearing he’d blow his cover.
