On Sunday I took 350 micrograms
of dimethoxybromoamphetamine,

In the afternoon I prayed

to the drives which animate us,
beseeching them:

To be mindful,
To clear intentions,
To care for myself, and
share in the good life.

Old money gone bad,
New money gone wrong,

Last month I started a course of Zyban,
This month I remembered
the days of theater;

Our familial failings, stage right.
An escape offered by friends, stage left.
To center, torn by whatever it is the world says.

On the apron, resplendent in lurid hues,
Illuminated by neon bisexual lighting,
I find I am comfortable here, at last;

Everything seems to be happening at once:
Memories of every night out blur into one,
Aspirations to manifest now after so long,
And I am off-valence, so willing to be lost, to gain or be bound.

I wonder at our capacity for spontaneity
and wish I had asked for help sooner.

These sways don’t stop, the only thing to soothe them
is music. Those tunes are the most
reliable way this anxiety fades.
"Know thyself"

The dominant drive is the handle on the reducing valve of consciousness.
Consciousness is not merely received, it flows through us,
And one's body is its conduit.

Being has an active role in its synthesis.
It is from this vantage that pharmacophenomenology dares to ask:
Is there something the components of neurotransmission feel like?
For example, what commonalities are felt
under the influence of serotonergic drugs?

What sensate invariants are to be found
in the actions of other neurotransmitters, endorphins and hormones?
Can we identify these felt sensation with those naturalistic concepts?
Could we map the structures and limits of experience from the inside out,
Using neuropsychopharmacology as a cartogram
and the phenomenological tradition as a pathfinder.
Would that be so noumenautic?

Strange that I missed those gray skies
and places I've hated in shallow moments
and glacial moods. I suffered such confusion.
My shadow told me: I wouldn't know what to do
with someone. I realize I am splitting, these runaway
valuations have me reckless and lost, out on the borders
my lines are crossed.

"When I was younger I could not concentrate", she said.
That really stuck with me, because I'd been there
and found it happening to me once again.

My consciousness locks up, its parts bristle in anarchic chaos,
Incoherent, indominant. I am bedridden into the afternoon,
Indecisive, fetal. I muse on possible chemical motivation:

The unsubtle euphoria of dexamphetamine,
The warm excitement of a phenidate,
The cold focus of an adrafinal,
The brutish pyrovalerone,
And my prescription
NDRI cathinone.

I get up, disconcerted, apathetic, yet I write this
just to prove that darkness can be a source of strength
when more wholesome platitudes fail.
I know those feelings of power are founded on something
unstable, unsustainable, cruel; yet here I am, in this moment with you.

I find myself strongly desiring intimacy
yet fear its consequences. Sometimes I feel
emptiness after connecting with others.

The group are among a few of the only humans
I've ever felt to have known authentically.
A sense of belonging, fleeting, sempiternal.

A little ****** up, a lotta genuine.
I'd've been lost without 'em.

G-town hasn't changed.
Same city, different crowd.
Year-in, year-out.

All the same "His Praise Remains
unto Ages of Ages"
across this weathered domain.

Old highs, new lows. Homesick for infinity
and lost in the throes.

Another pub, club, afters, rave. I forget sometimes
the world is not such a malevolent place.

Same conversation, different heads.
Once I felt more connected, now I am far away.
Been meaning to take an empatheogen with someone

to remind me
the world is not such a malevolent place.