You’re handed a pipe
it looks fine.
You’re told to relax.
You smile, too high to do anything but.
You flick the lighter, inhale and try to prepare
you can’t.

You’re moving
circling over some horizon that resembles the mashed combination of green hills at sunset
and the giant that lays across them has taken the only home base you could reach.

You’re twitching
you’re still.
You’re warm,
you’re not.
You’re cold,
you’re not.
You’re worried you are talking to the streetlamp through a window
you are.

You’ve lost all concept of time
but you’re pretty sure you’ve kept the same reality.
You’ve always breathed like Darth Vader.
You remember your first kiss
the dragon wouldn’t stop breathing fire and it, she, just felt too scaley,
thank god the pancakes were delicious.

You look at your friend and he is smiling,
but too wide.
His mouth grows to encompass his head, his body, the whole room.
His cat is rolling on his tongue.
lolling from side to side
never breaking eye contact.
You see the “meow” leak from the small hole in the back of a shrinking throat
and enter the cat’s ears before it shrieks and the sound finally hits you.

You hear “meow, meow, meow” on a laugh track that’s too loud
and it sounds like ears have hit the bass
because there are butterfly wings beating through your skull.
but the flutter murmurs to the back of your throat and the wings become whisps as they escape through your eyes.

You close your friend’s mouth and ask how long it’s been.
“Meow.”
Not long enough.

“Why, you think you’re coming down?”

“I don’t know man, but I hate your ******* cat.”

“Of course you do.”