I want to communicate something
but all I have is this
emptiness
where there should be emotion, I
wish for so many things
and yet can't find
the devotion.

Why am I so scared of my empathy?

A dream of three parts the more significant.

On campus but I felt lost, deceived, confused;
Visible to many people, few of whom I knew.

In a fantasy, we searched littoral gates, scrub-land
and trekked across frozen mountains. I argued
with my old master in Isengard, and lost.

Transported underground to an oracular room,
Colorful shadows on the wall show visions of
the far corners of this middle-world. I turned
away from those portentous scenes, to a staircase
that towered before me. Half-a-dozen chests perched
upon its odd steps, tragicomedic faces enameled into them.
Atop sat a grand piano, two saplings sprouting from its strings
and reaching up toward an attic skylight. From this lofty window
a voice uttered a strange, soft dialectic incantation, and a light shone
bright enough that I could climb out
through a ladder wrought of sunbeams.

I'm high on the writings of Jim Morrison
and Hunter S. Thompson.
Soft echoes of Roman ruins feel forsaken
for  some reason, like
they were left to be found without
truly remembering. It's got
haunting solemnity, graciously waiting
with aeons of patience.
Dreams of Venice keep me from waking,
Their soothing rhythms
like beached waves' lapping haven.

It's so strange
how little I'll let slip
compared to what I share

here, with you.
It's so odd
how much I've put out there
compared to what I keep

here, with us.
I need to come out of this
pain. I love

and hate
everything because
on some days I'm worth it
and on other days I'm not.

So I write
this terrible poetry
that means the world to me
and briefly the world stops
destroying me.

In this act of creation
I can breathe, poiesis
frees me from fear, it

releases me from my own
agony, I can believe at last
and all I can see are moments
shared between people, kept in memory.

It is bittersweet, καλλίστη.

I took some suboxone
and wandered down to Dead Man's Beach,
Drifting over the sands, blown out, floating away
in the Atlantic wind,

I forget what troubles me.

Such an odd thing it is to
craft such a lonely piece
of poetry and publish it
on a website where others
might read into emotion
that seems to bleed from
those words
put down
by yours
truly. Be they fearful
or joyous or of sorrow
or intrigue, the echoes
of feeling
are detached
from the voice
that did dare cast
them, begging
for interpretation
yet no longer a part
of him, his moment of
subjective experience is
all yours
for the taking,
Encapsulating
what he saw,
Inanimate
signs drawn
on thy digital wall.
The reader does read
into your words
but the question I am
asking is what thoughts
do you suppose
belong, to who or whom?
Which pathos do the words
you read belong to? Surely
it is yours, mine has been

detached when I transcribed
those words. Do you see
what I'm getting at?
When you feel you might wonder
where it all comes from.

I ask in my poetry that
I might be healed, that
it might heal me but tell
me, who or what am I asking
this of? Words make up poetry
but they do not endow semantic
properties of themselves, sign
does not equate to significance
for the process of semiosis does
require a subject to deem,
To bestow meaning, to gleam.
It is my intention that this
self-expression should be as
therapy is but I see not the
means or rather its mechanism
we call catharsis but claim no
more, nothing but a few sounds

and some long gone echoes
that remind us of things
I knew we'd never forget
but I never thought it'd
be this difficult
to remember what-
ever beauty was.

Would you mention those foreign times
in the quiet of night
or some other type of cool nocturnal silence?


I am asking you

There came a point where the learning ceased
and when recreation became its sole purpose
I had to desist, this is why
you don't see
me anymore;

I gave up everything that
I had to reach
where

I am.

I have been quiet these passing months,

Reflecting on my desires
amid this summer's solitude;
Their difference, and appearance,
These attitudes towards my future.
Odd to consider what changes in a year.

In May I moved back in with a few friends,
But after a month I move back out again.
As June comes to a close I find myself
at odds again, I assess 2C-T-21 but
it is unremarkable with effects
resembling a subdued 2C-E.
Given its toxic metabolites
I have no interest going
any further into it.
I guess they can't all be winners.

I attend the 2nd conference in
Philosophy and Psychedelics Studies
hosted by the University of Exeter. I applaud
the commitment and passion of this disparate group
of drug-addled academics, but still I am wary of our efforts.
It is a hard to study a thing
which alters the very faculties
of those who partake of it. As for
my own contribution, an old concept,
Apotheogenic.

I came to a possible realisation,
You're as likely to change the world
by writing a paper or going into politics
as you are by taking drugs in a park
or talking furiously at strangers;
That's surely false. What strange,
******-up, vain-glorious worlds
we choose to live in. Yurt (for social justice)!

I want out.
I just want out.
Who doesn't want
to escape,

How many fall prey to
distraction along the way?
They get high, or comfortable
because they can afford to escape.

Nevermind the sober,
Ignore the starving,
Let apathy destroy
everything humanism yearned for.

There's nowhere to run, nor is there anyone,
Who would risk it, those migrants, them exiles
and the refugees, what are they fleeing from?
Not to engage in confrontation, to escape from
the war we brought to their homeland. We did this,
We made the world the way it is today, sitting here
typing away. What am I trying to say? Escape or change,
When you escape you forfeit your say, they'll change anyway.

How painful must it be to leave your home, to grapple with that
it was taken away, and one's say; we sit here, typing for change,
Trying to escape.

Chasing a statue, and it's getting away.

Waiting for the sun in some desert lands
as the weightless yacht sails through the sands.

My mind has gone rouge
and it's taken me hostage.

Wave to the slaves,
You've nothing better to do.
Give me your mouth,
I've something to show you:

Strobing images flow
to form a sea of subtly,
veracious emotion;
The black and white chequered tile floor,
In a baby's pupil, iris and more.

We are the greatest threats
to the fabric of society:
Terrorists, drug dealers, hackers and poets.
The drones of humanity tremble at the mention of our true profession.
Are they alive
or merely undead?
The difference struggles to comprehend.

Paper bullets fly through the air like locusts
as a torrent of words enfolds upon us.
"Did you think to **** me?
There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to ****.
There is only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof."
Love the feeling as it falls apart;
When the chaos breaks into a line and gives birth to art.

What do you do when nothing excites you anymore,
How do you cope in the post-epicurean world?

Chroma key a green tee with the galaxies
you wish you could visit,

Message me
and I'll meet there you there.

The rain is so frail, beatific
moment, dim precipitate on my bare arms
and wondrous half-light washing across the city sky.

Do I trust myself with CNS depressants, or am I just deterred
by the thought of those more eclectic GABA aftereffects.

I'm on fire again
and it burns like a dæmon.

I find myself reveling in this
feeling, feeling so much more
than I had before. I worry that
I'd lose myself in this
quiet inferno, or return to those
forgotten shores, that I'd bathe
in the Phlegethon or the Lethe
once more. Pyromancy and tranquillity.

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness
and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content”.

Time is a river whose waters we stand in,
Memory is the fountain which overflows.

All recreational drugs should be decriminalised;
Altering one's own state of mind is no injustice,
It only reflects the psychology of a given agent.

The majority of psychoactive drugs should be legalised
barring those with extraordinary potential to injure or
to be weaponised. Distribution should be state-regulated
to ensure that monopoly of the marketplace does not occur.
Vetting substances will require a series of clinical trials
and the health of our people comes before all other concerns,
Particularly business and religion. Freedom of choice is the
individual's burden, our mandate is only to provide information.


*"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,
the true place for a just man is also a prison."

Recently I was misidentified as a psychonaut
so allow me to clarify,
I am not.

I am no longer
part of that cabal,
I am no more a psychonaut than I am a catholic;

But, as a philosopher, I will write of it.


Psychonautics is an act of configuration.
It refers to a methodology
for describing and explaining
configurations of consciousness,
And a research cabal
in which adherents explore
and harness those configurations.

The power of psychonautics
is that configurations of consciousness
have resonant effects on meaning and belief.
The psychonautic cabal emerges from a recognition of this.

Psychonautic exploration is not without risk
to the physical and psychological well-being
of the researcher, to their essence and beliefs.

An experienced and trustworthy practitioner
can provide a tether to your shared reality,
Advanced practices require caution and patience
to navigate safely; "[t]here is no casual experiment".


In the Western paradigm, classical psychonautics
was defined by contemplative and ritual techniques,
The religious or spiritual practices of a tribe or society.

Modern psychonautics has been increasingly defined by
the use of psychoactive substances, which is likely the result
of secularization, advances in pharmacy, and the war on drugs.

In contemporary society psychoactives are a valuable commodity
that many people use (or misuse) for a variety of reasons.

Some will seek out drugs they have not tried before,
Few shall devote themselves entirely, investing
their time and resources in learning about,
acquiring and assessing psychoactives.

This latter cohort aligns with the methodology
of psychonautics, they commit to understanding
through practice. Many become well-versed
in Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS),
Some academics assume this is the mark of the modern psychonaut
but it is mere specialization  rather than characteristic thereof.


As more initiates into psychonautics emerge from drug experiences
so does the cabal become more chemical. Nevertheless
it draws its adherents from a diversity of practices.

Psychonautic practices entail ontological risks,
The ranks of the cabal are full
of disordered, misguided, or warped adherents
whose heedless practice undermines
the meaningfulness of consensual reality.
A lack of formal training and mental health
likely contribute to this, although no equation
can encapsulate the qualitative experience which
compromises ontological security.


The cabal is decentralized, without singularly defined leadership
or ideals, and it operates through intrigue. Its adherents
may dispute the ethos or validity of some practices
and their corresponding configurations, and so
within the cabal there is an internal politics:

Cognitive liberals
believe anyone using responsibly
should be allowed their methodology and be able to practice.

Universalists or absolutists
believe everyone should be initiated, if not adherent.

Elitists and psychocrats
hold that only their method and practice is valid.

Cognitive dissidents
believe the methodology and its praxis must not be vested
in nation-states, corporations, or religions
if it is/they are to retain its power.

The cabal's politics of intrigue
represent an unspoken power struggle
where the stakes are unclear, if even communicable.

If the war on drugs comes to an end, psychonautics
will be redefined by its next wave of initiates,
May they be wise and kind.


I have written enough,
That part of my life is well and truly over.
My purpose here is to explore ideas, to experiment with poetry.
The place I allocate psychoactives
has always been secondary to that;

Rarely do I deign to sail the soul now
but when I do, know I am a philosopher

and do so as an inquiry into mind
rather than in service of alteration.

I'm sick of believing in things.
Lets break the dialectic
and go for a swim

I wish to 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,

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.

'The end justifies the means'
said the consequentialist
to his empty audience.

'The means justify a duty'
said the deontologist
to his lonely conscience.

"Carpe Diem.
Seize the day, boys.
Make your lives extraordinary".

I finally got closure
at four thirteen in the morning
eighteen months later.

I feel like I can stare
into the eyes of the future

For the first time in a long while
I could feel again: And it felt magnificent;
To be feeling things once more.

Values are malleable things,
Shaped over the course of our lives,
Slowly changeable except during extremes
which necessitate a flip, provoked by revelation or dissonance.
I used to value a capacity to be non-judgemental, is that hubris?

To suffer through confusion, to take pleasure in mania,
To soar with impulsivity, to drown in melancholia.
To play with fire, to pray to madness, to savor
one's pain, to wish to forget all the hurt, and
when one finally does, to realize the loss
of one's soul.

So I spent years
coming down, I sank into mediocrity, troubled
by my prospects; disenfranchised, devalued.
I reneged upon knowledge and pleasure;
I reneged upon curiosity, compassion.
I might be between values, between
integrity and wisdom, these are
no mere platitudes, for I am

Once again, consider taking leave of the earth
albeit with no true intention of going anywhere,
Not a notion aside from wishful hopes, aspiration
for a life
where I can consume drugs, date whomever I want
and deal with falling apart

Walking down the promenade as dawn reared from behind us,
Dark clouds broke apart with a subtle hue of kindness.
Slow air chilled the beach-side fresh enough
to keep our heads cool after another night so venturous.

The hour so early no one was up,
The breeze so lazy it stayed soft.
All as turquoise waves lap it up,
Like stars' rays in a primordial teacup.

The perfection was fading, but right's right.
The half-light was aging, but what a sight.

Another bank of fleeting memories,
More reasons to smile unintentionally.

A nineteen-year-old drug connoisseur,
That fiend on the roam, just the next player
making moves on his cell-phone.
Sometimes you gotta race
but you always gotta play,
Revel in The Apotheon;
Welcome to The Game.

Stoner to the bone,
Raver at heart;
Yet everthrough always the psychonaut.

Been a speed-freak, a pill-head
and almost got stuck in the k-hole,
All 'cause one day
life caught me double-dosed;
You never intend to be any of these things,
It just all happens
while your eyes are closed.

To get belligerently drunk
feels so noble in the act,
As does reciprocity gained
from subtle amatory advance.
Who's to say
it's anything other than that?

I yearn for the simplicity
of treading water
in the company of one's
significant other,
To wander aimlessly
yet together.

Is that really so much;
Is it ever enough?

Tho escapism's enticing
give me any other drug

I am decided, these experiments of Entactus
shall diminish.
While I may still dabble
the bulk of my research is finished.
The Empathion was adventurous, but now I move on
to (discovery in) The Psychedelion.

In conclusion I declare:
Sigma.
Humanity Is A Joint Effort,
Mastery Is A Sole Exploit.
But there is more, always more.

Comrades in ecstasy, I pray,
Hold fast (all through the sway)
in hopes of refuge, from the light of day.

A long time ago
in a psyché far far away,
The Empatheon was our domain.
We chased it with such passion, determined
to stay up.

Now I revisit the matter of Entactus
and suffer
for it.

You lit me up with just an ember,
My lungs were on fire
that day in December.

You set off a raging hurricane within me,
When the storm landed
my breath billowed
like smoke from a chimney.

That lovelessness, condensate
near killed me.

It's kicking off.
That feel is in the air
and I'm back chasing dusk.
There's quality in the sky,
The forthcoming night.

I find it strange that autumn is so beautiful
yet everything is dying
as we approach the year's end.

The mysterious allure
psychedelics hold
has been replaced
with attempts to research,

To understand a spiritual tool
from the science of its molecule
pleases both soul and psyche
beyond my dearest words.

The keys of my keyboard
alight with will, imagination
and this mental life
yet all words pale
in comparison to
the scene lying before my mind.
Rain falls, in the garden and on the street.
I see it shimmer on the tarmac, dripping
from an old tree
I remember when it was a mere sapling.

Sometime otherwise, the scene darkened
and a dusk sky
I fell in love with summers ago
graces us with her subtle indigo
which I see through this window.
I witnessed so much I am thankful
for, every moment remembered has
some significance, rarely is it obvious.
Though this life can be lonely at times
on occasion it is so kind
that I feel in my head
and it feels right.

Once, from a dark desk
in a quiet room  I felt it
through the window, with it
came the sublimation of all
that I knew. I was contented
then, for a long and wonderfully lonely time.
I savored the moment, sublime, knowing it
fades to leave memory, not answers why;
Contentedness, wandering in mind and
wondering why. Everything has come
together, objects in space, movements
through time; cloud, rain, reflections
in water, tarmac, shimmering, leaves
dripping, time easing, sky clearing, the
opaque steam of a condensate wall fading,
The azure gradually fades into indigo and
again onto navy blue until finally, a black
absence tinted with skyglow, space in all
its darkness, teeming with twinkling stars.

Moments tied to memories, tinged with emotions
evocative of time, reconcile space and my mind
with a sublime environment, separate  from mind.
Its function is to divide subject from object,
Self from world, me from you, I from all
and shade
from hue.
Such are some of things
minds do.

Took half a milligram of bromazolam
after a long week, thoroughly enjoyed
the anxiolysis. Fifteen hours later
I can still feel its metabolites
at work, yet that feeling
when the world became a friendlier place
is unyielding.
I wonder how long I have before the rebound hits.

Odd to crave the lightness of something so apotheogenic,
Knowing full well
it's darkness.

Old friends, forgotten habits.
Last night I drank some things:
100μg of flubromazolam,
100mg of tianeptine,
And cream soda, among other things.

I quest, I'd venture, that sense of wonder.
I'll find answers.
Seeking to cultivate my contentedness; that existential

Contemporary democracy is a flawed system we cling to
because we've nothing better with which to build consensus.
Perhaps the resurfacing of fascism was heralded by excessive
neoliberal efforts towards political correctness and as it became
too much to behold the people began to throw stones. Or perhaps
it is due to inescapable socio-economic concerns. Ultimately I think
we have to ask three things:
1. Is libertarianism right, (surely its left but) is it fair, cui bono?
2. Is democracy good, is it viable, is the oligarchic disguised?
3. Is representation really all we can offer, does it work or
does pretense to transparency conspire to fail politics?

All I can conclude is that we don't know how to govern ourselves because we don't know ourselves very well.

Growing old(er)
and stuck in the past,
What is to become of us?
Come sip some Cola (Kristijan
Majic Remix). Lush always cheers
us up whenever it doth get too much.

I should pay tribute to the (video-)games I love,
They mean so much to me; Virtuality's touch.

Relief in  this heavy serenity.
Here are some coordinates
for time rather than space,
Maybe that's where you'll
find me; say 13.799±0.021
multiplied by 109 years.

Sometimes I forget how important it is
to put on some good music
and write. It's like

my guide star's been torn out of the sky,
The path I've been following
all my life, it's dark

and I'm nowhere, but
at least I found a new band I like,
Daughter; my experiences have only made me

wise. Though my life's quiet now there'll be a time
when I'm dead but my light still shines.
I hope one day it'll be my gift

to you, these words
which I never intended another
human would find. Even though I know
your curiosity will draw you to knowledge like

We are halcyon in this cybernetic dream,
To twine the brain with the machine.
Not the mind,
For throughout all this
we will remain humankind.

A.I. possess no will to contest with
our being. Knowledge is inapplicable
without wisdom, sapience
and purpose; would that allay your fears.
Understanding is a rung we all have to climb.

The symbionts were born
but we are not free yet.
Liberate, our purpose.
Fraternity, our creed.
Family is more than blood.

****** circuitry glimmers
neon patterns of crimson,
Nothing is more comforting.

Each and every node, a clan, a family.

It may not be
who I wanted to be
but so often I find it is who I am, so I take what comfort I can
from my identity. Still, I feel shame for being this way.

I believe I can transform my darkness it into a force
for good but I'm not ignorant to my own corruption;
I believe I can focus my intensity to achieve anything
but I'm aware when persons find this disconcerting.
I believe this is why I burn so slowly, and let shame
destroy me. I don't want to hurt another, so I look
inward
and chain myself,
I cast off my being,
Shave each layer off.

The words we use say much about the order of things
and about our desired position in life.

They say I'm an innocent boy and perhaps
I am among the more experienced criminals.
I thought myself well-versed in the
dark-arts. There's always more to learn.
Last night I witnessed the proclivity of cathinones
to induce compulsive redosing when smoked.
My initial assessment of pentylone was off the mark
and that scene from last night stuck in my mind,
Seeing research chemical smoked off tin foil.
I did not discover this fiendishness, but
I bore witness to it, and it hammered home
how out of touch I am with a world I once lived.
I wonder if I felt the wrong sort of compassion,
But is it ever wrong to feel compassion?
Why did I feel cognitive dissonance?
Have I changed so much?
Who is it that feels these things?
So many questions. I'd quiet my mind.

These thoughts reflect much about the order of things
and my as yet undetermined position in life.

I am not afraid of the dark.
I am not afraid of monsters.
I am not afraid to die alone.
I am afraid to love someone.

I fear that I love being alone.
I am not afraid of depression.
I am not anxious about my life.
I am not scared of myself 'cause
I do not fear judgement. I am not
afraid of the dark,
I'm scared of that
which I don't have.

There was once a group of teenagers
who proclaimed they would live like gods;
And that we did, for a time nothing could stop us.
In hindsight it was another phase of turbulent adolescence,
Pushing it as far as the times would permit. I cherish such bitterstrange growing pains with nostalgic sweetness.

Some cast anchor, others drifted by.
Those friends that kept their ties
truly felt a sense of belonging
when by each others side,
They formed a lifeline.
Its feels like such
a time ago:

Where do the years go?
So many adventures
now remembered.

Feeling that burnout
but I got the remedy.

Ran several kilometers
with a weighted backpack
on 3-MethylEticyclidine

but I only felt something when
Love Inc. by Booka Shade
played, it reminds me of that feeling,
Freed me up.

**** the gender thing, no one asked to be
born, just wanna live
without abject judgement
for something you never signed up for;
I never really felt I belonged too.

Alas,
una
dabit
quod
negat
altera.