"The present is gone. Fantasy is a part of reality
and we take the breaks off. We're thinking clearly
yet not thinking at all, and this feels right.
We stop trying to control things,
The warm rush of chemicals through us. Is this brain damage?
We forget all the hurt and pain in life.
We wanna go somewhere else. We're not threatened by people anymore. All our insecurities have evaporated.
We're in the clouds now. Wide open,
We're spacemen, orbiting the earth.
Yeah, the world looks beautiful from here man.
We're nympholeptics, desiring for the unattainable.
We risk sanity for moments of temporary enlightenment.
So many ideas, so little memory. The last thought killed by anticipation of the next.
We embrace an overwhelming feeling of love.
We flow, in unison. We're together.
I wish this was real.
We want a universal level of togetherness, where we're comfortable with everyone.
We're in rhythm. Part of the movement, a movement to escape.
We wave goodbye.
Ultimately, we just want to be happy.
Yeah, yeah!
Hang on,
What the **** was I just talking about?"
*-Jip

Mydriasis took stock of a reflection, an outline of a body

drawn by the dim light of an LED bulb
fading through the visible spectrum.
The outline of that body
is given false relief

in an oval mirror, positioned above a small desk.
The room's in the partial darkness, and in the half-light
a pair of eyes wander. Their saccades spill
over the figure’s torso. The darting movement
of both pupils take it in, lingering
on a pair of long but simple chains that hang from the neck.

Each chain-link is different in length,
The only distinguishing features on an otherwise plain male chest.
The longer one looks as if it was onyx
in color, but most of its coat has been worn away
to reveal burnished copper. The silver
chain is slightly shorter, and less worn, a tiny spoon
has been attached to the clasp at its end.

The shifting light of the room drifts out a half-open door
to the left of the mirror. Mydriasis’ eyes meet their reflection.
As they take stock of the impression  they began to wander.
The gravity of those  black holes in the mirror cast a moment
endless as sky. These eyes bask in the half-light, maintaining
their stance but wandering in mind, hallucinating
accent and relief unto the image
until color and texture balloon.
This game they play is but a leisurely swim
in the everflowing Lethe.
They do not shy away

from depth, emptiness. What lies beyond
at that moment implores them to be patient.
Pupils twinkle in the darkness, glittering with praise
for something even darker; yes, they bask in this.
A moment so courteously extended between
the drives of this individual. In that moment
an accord is met. Purpose, given, consciousness
extends by virtue of its immanence; it comes to be
across time, a living memory.

'Tis fierce mild out, said he to himself
one mild February night, breeze so bare
and an atmosphere to match that cool air.

At a later date he went east, out on the town for a night
in the Big Smoke, the next day thought to himself:
What pleasant languishing the coke had left

in thee, though tenderized the 'auld cardiac muscle some.
Awoke another day, some time after noon, and thought of how
he'd dreamed again during those couple months with her. Now those

nightly travels were less remarkable, an immemorable mush
full of fading oneiric sensations, a hazy sleep, it'd returned to
that somnolent jumble; the vitality, gone. This clue, to notice it

has been missing from thine mental life. It is a strange tiding
when one realizes how awry things've become; oh yes, dear
retrospect will you ever succumb to a more prudent future?

I know too well the drugs which captivate
my soul
and have held me spellbound since youth.

Aye, there are ways to regain what's lost, to
recover what's missing, but interactions in the world
should be the cause of dreams, their form and content.

It worries me some to suppose other than that. If it was
some other world or part of the soul that imbued our dreams
with meaning, that would imply something has cut me off, or out.

Even were this not the case I think the implication still stands.
I mean to say that the presence of those who are known to us
in waking life may carry over in dreaming, forms transmuted

and content apparent only as metaphor. I should think there are
too many coincidental symbols, ah belay that,
I shan't dismiss post-hoc interpretation. All I wish to say is that

the presence of persons weighs heavy
on the scales of horn and ivory.
As we get older it's too easy to become

Been real before,
Now we're otherwise
or elsewhere.
Do you remember
all the time we spent
waiting to score?
Evening simmers
so sweet dusk
could hear her.

Yeah we knew what we were,
The world had nothing over us,
With less stress we were better for it.
We breathed in and I could feel how close
we were. It was real
and we were the best,
What was it that left us breathless?

Walking the estate
of my childhood,
Of adolescence.
Nostalgic loneliness.
The awe of discovery,
A life under lamplight.
Listen, naked trees shiver
in the winter chill, touched
by almighty rain-clouds. μ-Ziq plays Goodbye,
Goodbye.

Walking the city
I grew up in,
I grow old
here. Belonging;
History. I lost myself
in study, the humanities
which I dabbled in and other
dark arts. Forbidden knowledge,
Unspoken ethics. Ineffable wisdom,
Experience.

...If you wish to lose yourself to your dreams,
Lost souls asleep do drift,
With those memories that gleam,
I won't be hiding as the doses I admire
sate those craving of desire; find your game.

We got this glow in our house,
The entire crowd is out,
All the feens are
up for it,
I know you love it when it's kickin' off.
I like your reckoning
because we're buzzin' and there's nothing here to stop,
To stop this.

And everything works out, be sound,
I wear the symbols just because.

...The way we are, the way we seem,
Fill this nothing with our dreams.
The buckfast and spliff do their rounds
in the gaf where we all sit
as we get ****** and love it.

And everything works out, be sound,
Everyone can put their hoods down
here.

The ebb and flow
of a mind which knows it is in flux
yet also belongs to that unchanging one
whose breath animates us.

I fall into unconscious shuddering
with desperation and mute wonder
and hidden hopes and silent screams

I recognize what's become fixed within me.
Lost progress, traumatic laughter.
The Apotheon is calling

once again, I'm stone cold
but don't want to be sober. I try so hard
to get over myself, my loneliness.
I got all this poison, and I don't want to share.

I'm losing my time on earth
to the gods of the underworld.
I turn around and see Orpheus
following me

I've been thinking
far too much
lately.

I lay amidst scattered definitions
without knowing.

The syntax is forming.

I would give up all I have
to gain something intangible.
The world is so beautiful
and reason so optional.

My brain itches, my skin's abuzz.
Serotonin on the blink again; this familiar, aching nostalgia.
Sometimes I think I like this (how insane).

My mind sees things:
Awe-inspiring, thought-provoking things;
Mortal things, and things' otherwise;
Things you would see differently,
Perhaps things you would fear;

But I am only trying
to comprehend

There's a moment in the adult
as it's grown, where the wonder
that was felt as a child
has been supplanted
by a routine knowledge of the world;
World as structure
rather than as process.
When curiosity is replaced

with expectations and patterns
for us to retrace
into the tender night.
"Literary or scientific, liberal or specialist,

All our education is predominantly verbal
and therefore fails to accomplish
what it is supposed to do.

Instead of transforming children
into fully developed adults,
It turns out students of the natural sciences
who are completely unaware of Nature as the primary fact of experience,
It inflicts upon the world  students of the humanities who know nothing of humanity,
Their own or anyone else's."

During our struggle to attain peace
the heavens open,
You can only smile in the soaking rain.

Practices must be underscored
by a narrative they can be subsumed by
if they are to elicit change

in the person, fashion personality or craft persona.
"But I am straitened between two:

Having a desire to be dissolved
and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better.

But to abide still in the flesh, is needful for you".
[Pulvis et] umbra sumus.

An overcast autumn sky settled in
and fall let loose. Uncertain, lose it.
Lost,

Use it.
I had strange dreams of you last night
actually. It's been some time

since I dreamed about anyone
realmente. Bring out all the carotenoids and anthocyanins,

Bring down the foliage; America is an empire in decline.
X is the new Y.

There is a place that cannot be found
by those who search for it.
Something was left for us there
but how can we go to it?
To find a place that cannot be found
one must first be lost.

The arcane location
hidden deep by abstraction,
Lies out yonder in the streets.
On the horizon skyline, and beyond,
Illuminated in the half-light
of the setting sun.

With our quest set,
We venture forth.
The map is incomplete
so we'll wander north.
Intoxication is our compass,
Company is our key.

Adventure is a thing
that cannot be taught.
All else I daresay is
X marks the spot.

Cut my wisdom teeth on a bass synthesizer.
As the day of our green patron saint approaches
I'm indifferent to thoughts of debauchery that once
invigorated my soul. This town has changed and I've
lost faith in the session, these memories are so pointless,
I'm somewhat manic, surely a result of excessive stability.
I think this is my prime reason to get out, but
my love for G-twn remains; part of my soul'll be always buzzin'

It's like
we can't even pretend
to be normal anymore.
Can't  have anything in mind
without thinking of our next score.
Forgotten how to interact without them,
Lost all social mores.
Do we think ourselves better,
More deserving or special?

Feeling the aftershock, again;
What keeps us going?

Get your finery on and let the games begin,
Blackout suit, purple shirt, and a tie to match
those gleaming eyes.

The dinner was alright
now get ready to fight. White powder on the counter,
A dusted card and a rolled-up fiver.

Codine chills, calm instilled,
Colorful lights, relaxed thrills.

Later on and we're back in black.
Hometown beatdown. Go hard, get smashed.

Messy nights never get old,
River of glass across a broken road.
Tonic wine's best served cold, its medicinal properties
remain unknown. The sweet nectar, a bottle of B
to resurrect me.

Just the end of another debutante night,
Staying classy while we drink and fight.

Music blared
in a den of discord;
From glow sticks they bled
luminescence
with which toxic ink
could be coalesced
and so scrawled
in poisonous writing
upon darkened walls:
STAY UP (all night;)
Never come down!

Follow the white rabbit
out onto the ledge.
Take a long look
way over the edge.

I'm alone up here on this battered rock,
That orbits the earth, keeping watch.
Through the looking glass
I spy
your every pretension.
On this satellite forlorn
I am comprehension.

The red pill or the blue pill,
It's a choice to choose.
You have to decide
and you can't lose.

I keep my eye on the planet below
because nothing here
ever grows old.
The tides syncopated to my path,
I wax and wane while the sun laughs.
All while my eyes gander
through to the looking glass.

Take the plunge,
Say goodbye.
Kansas is gone,
The end is nigh.

Zero Cool,
Welcome To The Machine.
Fool's Gold, Self-Esteem.

Then nothing forever;
Silence returns,
All is quiet.
Endlessly silent,
Zero cool.

I sat in The Square, surrounded
by throngs of skaters, sesh-heads
and other humans out on the town
for Skate Culture night.
It may be
the last dry day of Autumn
in G-town.

You chat with familiar characters
or familiarize yourself, you hear them
trying to sort, mulling over their situation,
Lamenting their day-jobs while trying to avoid
the reek of mass public intoxication. Every weekend
thousands of pandemic drinkers congregated here
and summer's not quite over

so long as it's dry outside.
I watch people skate, I wonder
what's this feeling mean?
This brief, fleeting recognition
as I scan the crowds, pick out faces
from the inhabitants of
my home city.

It is not sonder,
They are not random passersby,
Their lives' complexities are known to me
having grown up around them. To know a town,
To be able to look around on a night out
and recognize so many faces;
Some insatiable nostalgia

even though I am at home

My history is between
me, my mental health
and this messy poetry.