I wish I could open up
and be human again, like I once was.

Someone offered me drugs, and so politely did I decline.
Someone showed interest in my body, and I could not engage.
Someone asked if I wanted a wing-man, and I said "no, thank you".
I wanted to say yes, to move closer, to accept.
It was so automatic. When asked if I were single
I said "I am", and felt so lonely. This trauma is disheartening.
I turn the volume up.

It's strange now that I want to be a good person
I feel so broken, yet when I pretended to be bad
I was so rewarded. With nothing to lose
you take chances. Once I was carefree
and more willful in my reaction.

I wish I could be carefree
like I once was, and not feel this badness.

With nothing to lose, you'll take chances.
You become fearless, a false confidence.
You beget pleasure, gain accomplices.
Careless longing, nostalgia.
Whose ethics' dare answer
that a contented human is
as productive.

They say "...people
who are homesick for infinity
find it more or less in all drugs",
So come a little closer
like I once was.

I put on some BoC
and begin searching
through the dark web.

I forgot how much time
I spent here, perusing the boards, the forums,
Running the shadows,

Turning over dark corners.
I put on some Carbon Based Lifeforms
and begin researching.

For those in society who have been displaced,
For whom no bell tolls,
For ware no refuge is safe.

Hackers. Dealers. Journalists.
Dissidents. Whistleblowers. Anarchists.
It's all very strange. I put on some drift-wave

to study them, their stories.

These weekends are no balm
Lack of intention, absent desire,
Confusion brings me low,
A tightness in my temples,
These trappings in my chest.
I crave escape,
I wish to egress.
I did some 3-MEC,
120mg oral. Mellow
but it's fine, I like the odd cathinone.
Eventually the substance fades,
As do I. Late into the night

he spoke to our curious group
about a book he wrote in prison,
The Rose of Paracelsus. There was
a mystical quality about him, calm,
Measured, gracious, wise and sagely.
His caution against the endless chasing
struck me, and advice to mind intentions.

I'm left pondering
the relation between
desire and intent,

We made a choice
to fall like stars,

We fell so low
it was never too far.

We let go our cynicism,
Our disenchantment,

Forget the world,
Remember our planet.

How did I live through this, after it;

I recall acid binges, candy-flipping
across town in an unwholesome fashion,
The underlying theme of escape, as dark waves
tore through our extended reality, to leave me 'wake.

Why feel this, why think it?

Sometimes I would start in fright from a nightmare
filled with flashing blue lights, cacophonous sirens,
My front door thrown off its hinges and the house
destroyed by vicious policemen. Eventually I quit.

When I could take no more, I gave it up
slowly, piece by piece, clutching to the last
remnants of my empire, feeling that apostasy,

Gave in to the itch, looking
for that real betterness.

I'm spinning, loud clothes, quiet figure.
Burnished copper wrung 'round my neck

reminds me how I came up, living
for the tunes we were breathing.

The wry smile
of a free animal
who knows it's time
to mix some jungle juice:

Smirnoff *****, Berliner Luft, peppermint tea;
Stroh '40' Austrian ***, apple & ginger;
Sea Dog Jamaican ***, neat;
Eventually it fades

and I feel those tendrils
drag me back into the sways,
The throes. The only thing to ever

outrun them
is music, it is so good,

So good to travel, to get away,
To come alive. Being home, perspective etches
a contrast between lives,

And I feel what destroys me,
My past chaste me,

But I always had an escape plan.