They tell me to lay down
and to please look at the fish.
Notice how they glide
in-and-out of the cool-blue
water; how they don't have
a care in the world -- they're
fish: one out of millions;
mindless; alone in packed
tanks; alone, jammed in
metal cans full of corpses
and low-quality mustard.

Putting the mask over my
perfect nostrils, my straight
teeth, they say Don't be afraid;
listen to my humming; how it
will blend with the high-pitch
screech you hear, now; becoming
an equilibrium of torture and
fantastical strangeness, unbound
by Gods, by Persons, by Loves.

Inside this perfect dark,
you cannot think beyond
the giant broad strokes that
is the world sweeping by --
and it is marvelous, the
buoyant miseries floating
above your head; my head
of ambivalent visions;
the Earth's core, a furiously
violent brilliance, ablaze
beneath my feet, under
layers of confounded
deathly masquerade; a
mask much like mine:
an egotistical reflection
brought out by one's
feeling of gigantic import-
-ance, despite hanging
from the vastest of ceilings;
a wannabe church in the sway
of jungle mind; primitive instinct.


***

You know you can wake up
  at this point, or so they say.
What does it all mean, to which
I murmur, I don't know. It's
hard to say what I know; if
anything, all I have is doubts.
All I can muster are regrets;
I wish I could return to that
perfect dark, confused and
semi-philosophical; all-
pretentious: a feeling of
being bound by brokenness.

They tell me to chill out;
you use semi-colons like
they're heartbeats. Focus
on whether your chest
holds validity.