I always suspected electricity
Ran rampant through my veins
To make me dazed and dizzy
But unable to sit still
It made me prone to flights of fancy
So I left giddy trails of sparks
Blazing proof of my restlessness
That once brightly caught your eye

Once your gaze had found my own
My moods came in swooning flares
And you crackled alongside me
Filling my aching, empty silence
With shiny, blessed noise
We burned so beautifully
With my electric fire
And your trilling declamations
Light and sound intertwining
Like thunder that had finally caught up with its lightning

It seemed like Nature's order
A completion of the whole
Two halves that followed each other
Unthinkingly and automatically

So one day when I found silence
It felt like Earth itself was splitting

Panicked, I burned more brightly
Stoked the fire just in case
I feared that I had dimmed
And been the cause of this new quietness
So when I still heard nothing
I thought my efforts insufficient
And I ran my highest currents
Until my wires nearly melted
Thinking the sun and I were comparable
And anticipating a response

And still I heard no trilling
No crackling at my side
So I wondered if perhaps
I had shined beyond your limits
Swiftly, I contracted
Reined in my flares and doused the fire
Thinking sudden darkness
Might just shock you into sound

I finally heard the faintest popping
Not quite the rending that I wanted
But a break from quiet all the same
Afraid of spoiling the moment
I leashed my electricity
Kept myself dim so I could hear you
Though I felt the writhing beneath my skin

It finally became unbearable
So I flashed like wild lightning
Lashed out and struck the ground
Hoping for your thunder
A dark and roiling storm
Swirling raindrops and clouds colliding
And deep, **** noise

All I wanted was your thunder
But in the end
It was only me yelling
Screaming out for downpours
Alone
Listening to my own echoes
Waiting for you to harmonize

In the end
I was always waiting
Wondering when you'd chosen silence
Wondering why I'd let you dim me
Wondering how it was we'd ever *burned

I
I stole my brother’s car and drove to Phoenix in the dark. Bluegreen glow of dashboard gauges, the faint scent of roadkill and desert marigolds. Tap. Tap. Tap. Insects slapping the windshield like rain. How many miles does it take to turn yourself around, to rise up from ashes? Keep driving. Drive until the sun blooms.

II
Some days were more dire than others. CCTV footage confirms I pawned a shotgun, a Gibson guitar, and my wife’s engagement ring at the pawnshop next to Fatty’s Tattoo parlor. The typographically accurate Declaration of Independence inscribed on my back also confirms this.

III
I ran the tilt-a-whirl at the Ashtabula county fair, fattening up on fried Oreos and elephant ears, flirting behind tent ***** with the cute contortionist with strawberry-blonde hair.

IV
I derailed in a dive bar.

V
I disappeared in a city lit by lavender streetlights, where buildings blotted out the stars and the traffic signals kept perfect time.
I picked through trash bins. I paid for love with drugstore wine.

VI
I closed my eyes on a mountain road. The sheriff extracted me from a ****** snowbank.

VII
I holed up for weeks in an oceanfront motel, dazed by the roar of the breakers. Each morning I drew back the curtains and lost myself in the crisscrossing patterns of whitecaps, the synchronous flight of sanderlings above the dunes. I dreamed of dead horseshoe ***** rolling in with the tide.

VIII
The moon over my shoulder tightened into focus like a prison spotlight. One night the barking dogs undid me. Goodnight, children. Goodbye, my love. I capitulated to the candor of a naked mattress. I grew my beard, an insomniac in a jail cell clinging to bars the color of a morning dove.

IV
I coveted the house keys of strangers.

X
I opened and closed many doors. I sang into the stoic mouths of storm drains. I stepped out of many rooms only to find myself in the room I just left. Despite all my leaving, I remained.

It can make one
Rich without gold.
Youthful inspite of
Being old.
Inspired despite
Having tired.
Ablazed without
Having been dazed.
It is a beautiful language,
Both expressive and intense.
It's warmth assuages,
Relieving palpable stress.
Spare no expense
When making known
Your desires,
For there will always be
A poem there to
Light your fire.

Science can't save you, neither can religion,
at least Popper and Niebuhr, philosophers and poets,
are entertainers, which is why actors and athletes
are paid so much. Thanks for the summaries.
I was teaching Shakespeare's 92nd ridiculous sonnet
to my student who lays blacktop in the off season
Shakespeare bellyaching about dying without her love
a feeling foreign to a modern adolescent sensibility
although many teens are pretty far gone searching
for their mothers or fathers in their dazed lovers' eyes.
Which is why we call it "the wound that never heals."
Or the lesion that's always lengthening. And bleeding.

Muslim fundamentalists and their Christian counterparts
are a mystery to me. Pews and prayer rugs, the airless
indoor environment of religious worship, reading
scriptures, hypnotized by hymns and fainting from staring
at candles through stained glass windows, almost certain
the preacher is faking his certainty about the afterlife.
It's not my problem. A more immediate concern:
receding gums and tooth extractions, swollen joints,
poor lubrication and circulation, wave after wave
of viral infection, the occasional antibiotic-resistant
bacterial attack, usually urinary, and who knows
what internal organs are dividing and conquering
without mercy or cease, i.e. the wound that never heals.

It is wise not to overvalue your continued existence,
good not to be innumerate, unable to compare
a mere 80 years with say 6.0 x 109 or all of time
(to date) times the multiverse. Conversely,
it is interesting all of space and most of history is contained
in your little mind (realizing of course it's just a map
of the cosmos not the cosmos itself, or is it?). I'm
unable to wrestle free, tongue in that cavity
and locked in my memories, so separate and disparate
from the biomass in the crosswalks, even my spouse.
Alone, so alone, even your doctor can only devote
limited thought to your situational mortality through
the redress of poetry - also a wound that never heals.

Snow for eternity, that's what this February's been.
All to the good, for someone it's the final February
so enjoy it to the extent you can. By that I mean joy.
Joy at birth. Joy at death. All joy. All times. Anyway.
That was Shakespeare's message: even tragedies are comedies.
May, a Buddhist, chants each morning.
Her husband, Marc, who's Jewish, plays league tennis.
Their son, Aaron, will soon make Eagle scout.
How does it relate to your wound that never heals?
Luck runs out. For D.H. Lawrence in New Mexico
or Ulysses S. Grant in Ohio or Yasujiro Ozu in
Tokyo or Satyajit Ray in Bombay or Rabindranath
Tagore in Bangalore or at the Battle of the Atlantic in the Azores.

The night is a poultice, winter or summer solstice.
My anonymity will not affect the anomie ghettoside
seeing for myself how season by season
vacations and accomplishments accumulate, late in life
and early on, sunrise over mountains or moonrise over Bronx.
Masturbator, prisoner of war. Hospice of the Holy Roman Empire.
Numerous blue notes: the 3 flat, 7 flat, 5 flat,
the 6 flat and the 2 flat too. I don't get
what Wallace Stevens means by imagination.
When groundhog shows up as a totem, there is opportunity
to explore the mystery of death without dying.
This then is the purpose of purposelessness (and of eating less)!
Now what about that wound that never heals.

The Skeptical Observer column in Scientific American
was somewhat alarming when he accepted a paranormal
explanation for how his wife's grandfather's inoperable
transistor radio played music from its hiding spot
in his sock drawer on, and only on, their wedding day.
Now I'll have to believe my father (or mother!) is watching me
perform private ****** acts with (or without) partners
or that they could even know my thoughts. Or aliens
are attending our committee meetings and making
perfectly reasonable decisions given the available information
and the world is rotating just fine without humans.
These possibilities - angels, ghosts, aliens - are better
than holocaust and genocide. In this way,
and only in this way, does doom become endurable.
The wound that never heals in the end is all you'll feel.

Cold rain,
& silver fork.

The date
moved from
winter night
to a gallery
where it
paused and
other things
moved
beneath the
Tigermilk.

Dazed,
I lost more
than heart
& the next
day the stress
carried me
on steel wing
to shed blood.

But I was clear.
Maybe things
were reset a little,
or maybe
I worried too much

because this
new thing
was already
spreading
across the inside
of my skin.

The bear broke out the bear trap, and screamed into the air, that the very man that set the trap that had imprisoned him there, had better find a hiding place, somewhere only he can go, to escape the fall of every gaze, every crystal drop of snow, because now he has an enemy who is red behind his eyes, an enemy who will not rest until gazing on his demise...

Kanza caught the biggest fish anyone had ever seen, they say he speared it from the bank when he saw it glinting green, without his artistry and skill the village would be doomed, once their thirst became too much, their last hopes consumed, but everyday there was a banquet, such was his expertise, that anything that took a breath in the forest could be seized, be it bird or beast or wild cat, weasel, fox or hare, Kanza even told the children that one day he'd catch a bear...

The bear withdrew into the darkness, under a canopy of pine, he knew that it was true that if he could just bide his time, eventually a man would come to check that awful snare, then before he could take a breath, his life would end right there, because no living creature from the mountains to the plains, deserves to live out their last in tortured, searing pain. Seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours, turned to days, but the bear, unblinking in the dark, never once broke his gaze, until one misty morning, still glaring at the trap, somewhere through the misty trees, he heard a twig go...SNAP!

Kanza knew all too well how big a mistake he'd made, now upon his back ,a million eyes, he'd meant to evade, but little did he know the kind of danger he was in, because now, flying through the air, was something much bigger than him, a creature so incredibly fast, as to leave nowhere to run, a demon,  a spectre, of ancient past, all his nightmares rolled into one.

The bear broke forth like holy hell, his roar shook the air, his razor sharp teeth and diamond claws ,in flesh, began to tear, Kanza ******* hold in his scream, as all around turned red, he knew he only had a few moments left, before he would be dead. The bear ploughed into the undergrowth, uprooting two small trees, then quickly spun to stare at his foe, who dropped down to his knees.

And there they sat, each one staring at the other and each one learning, understanding, what it is to suffer, Kanza knew his wounds would soon have him feeling dazed, the bear had been wounded by the trap, then hadn't eaten or slept in days.

"I'm sorry", Kanza said, the words surprising even him, as a line of crimson blood ran from his ear down to his chin, then he felt the darkness, and the ground around went black, Kanza fell forward to the ground, the eyes in his head rolled back...

When he awoke, he saw his reflection inside two huge black eyes, his instincts whispered for him not to move, something he didn't think too unwise, the bear stared into him as if it was reading his every thought, there was no escape left, no way of not being caught, after what felt like an age of the world had passed, the bear withdrew into the darkness, gazing until the last, Kanza turned to see that beside him was his mangled snare, never again in his life did he try to trap a bear.

don’t know what you call this,
it’s labeled a whatever thing.
you’re leading me,
to inconsistency.
tired of your mystery,
this isn’t suppose to be a puzzle piece,
can’t you see that i’m falling apart without you?
call it emotional dependence,
but if you cared just as you say you do,
you’d prove who and what you are,
instead of eluding to the truth.
burning through these possibilities,
how about you,
light a match, and,
guide us to the direction of nevermeanttobe.
do I have to remind you again?
how to act,
and listen.
just listen,
you make me feel like i’m high above,
the clouds of doubt that fill your mind at the worst of night,
causing me to lose track of time.
when it’s time to go,
we pack our bags,
forget to say goodbye.
if you were truly what i gained,
you wouldn’t mind tiring or lying to me.
i’ll accept it for what it is,
cause you’ll reminisce,
leave me to guess,
then wrap me all up in your head;
not as a present,
but to mark the esssence of having the nerve to speak to me.
i shouldn’t have to open the door,
place the keys on your front lawn,
just to see you move on from me again.
advice runs around my mind,
telling me things that i do not like,
how you like to lick your lips,
to marinate a thousand more lies and excuses,
feeling unashamed and inveterate every time.
shamelessly you make me yours and I make you mine;
oh, i don’t know what to call this.
memories of you and me,
raid through these homemade remedies,
for once and for all, trying to forget you;
for the love of Christ, why do I feel inclined to you?
you’ll call me once,
or maybe twice,
and i’ll pick up,
just to hear you cry, and whine,
about the things you can’t achieve in life.
because this life is like a marathon to you,
don’t race along when you feel rushed,
you’ll just forget to pace yourself.
my innocence is wearing thin,
you’re wearing me all across her chest,
and neck,
tell me you’re numb and can’t go through it again,
don’t feel nothing.
i’ll convince myself that you are here,
that you are here to hear what i feel is true and finally listen.
as the days go by,
i allow time to slip through fingertips,
time after time,
you make me out to be the biggest fool.
when i brag about you to them,
they suggest i don’t get too fond of you,
nevertheless, i’ll drift and float to dizziness;
disregard the past conversation,
while actively pursuing to revitalize the old one again.
these perpexlexing parts are hard to find,
i look around, note one to none,
and none to suffice;
there it goes, so i, lose track of you.

Foggy breeze through my
fingertips when sunburnt days
seem coveted in memory.
When the columbines came back from the dead.
Burnt up cities...
The last glimpse of
firefly lights grew dim behind me
The trees sprouted everywhere like stardust
The pillars I once worshipped
in incense with amulets
became faded ruins...
The weathered walls texture
were like sequins with no glimmer
I escaped again to a place with green lakes and forrests of pines
It's quieter up here in the
mountains
Like a shudder through the
window
I hear the old house moan all
through the day and all
through the night
The sunlight pierces through
the blinds
illuminating his face
which is already illuminated
But you're my bumblebee
that insignia- a honey gatherer
If you subtract the intimacy
out of ***...
Nothing's left, but
hollow mechanical *******
Stealing the rythmn from
the music
Sturdy as a beam I lay
Unable to grasp at anything
It's just noise
Sweaty day, shivering nights-juxtaposed
It's like living on Mercury
In decomposition like a basket of rotten lemons
Past conversations crush their
weight against my open ribs
No parent teacher or friend
told me how all consuming the sensation would be...
Dazed eyes staring through
disheveled blinds,
I was dropping rose buds off the
second floor balcony in the night
They hit the scratchy asphalt
like a gentle meteor shower
Monotonous nights replay
the same phases
That moon...
A face splashing
from gibbous to crescent
Waning on my malady
Always stirring like a steady torch

Part 2.

The cracking smile on her face, faded as he lifted her hands away. Propagating a gap between them, granting the cold air a territory,
to crawl among the spaces.
There was an interval silence before she broke it.
"Would it hurt you if I chose something beautiful?".
Deep down, she truly wished that it wouldn't.
She then profoundly started studying him who was strenuously absorbed into fathomless thoughts.
Another deadly silence filled in the room.
To her great misery, he murmured, "I don't know."
Along with a vulnerable gaze and a despairing smile, she let the words escape, "Tell me the truth then, will you?"
He raised his eyebrows, "should I?"
She nodded, as she barely knew that he was slightly nervous,
"This," he paused, "thing between us, I don't want it anymore."
She was in a dazed, having a hard time to conceive his sentence and approbate the bitter fact that he quit loving her.

Evenoer

i am dazed
with demons that prance around my head.
endlessly weeping for love and a soul
that they cannot find.
                                          my soul sits in an urn
                               on top of a rusted shelf in an abandoned castle that
                                                            ­                 once made the sun elated.

but now my soul's whispers reside within a glass vase
and i am tired of ridding my demons
                    so that ive stopped trying.

now they comfortably sit watching the world turn into a capsule.

they yearn for simplicity
but my mind has become too complex.
they yearn for belonging
but even I cannot obtain that.

the pull of a stare
a flicker of sparks
eyes meet so sweet
caught in the stare
cheek to lips a gentle brush
desire delivers in the click of a lock
hands clutch tight on your neck
a gripping strength, a slow squeeze
the mind dazed, a hunt to breathe
hardwired impulse, to a raw surging force
reaching, touching, the rise stricken
claws at hands in a grip
the steadfast capture
enforce of an iron reap
the heat and hiss of a monster
sounds a sharp slice in your ear
tears fall for God’s wretched care
the kiss dry's upon your cheek  

final is so clear
a silent suffocation
an impression sincere
pain defends the will to suffer
wounds heal and fade
separates the mind free to fear
a look of your outline is everywhere
turning quick to catch the heavy stare
caught off guard bows down to despair
the power deprived is no longer mine
broken twisted places it deep inside
drowning beneath a shallow surface
paralyzed by the danger of your kiss
stopped by a red light remembrance
fingers still search and retrace
the dignity ravaged in a waste
incapable of trust
I live buried alive
I look for you everywhere
I sleep on the furthest edge of a cliff
I wake trespassing the abyss



   Terry D'Arcy-Ryan

You are my
Ensorcelled Elysium,
You are my
Eden Dream.

You cascade
Upon my Dreamscape,
Enshrine my slumber in
A flowered gale of aromatic petals
That envelop me, beckon me
To herald the rebirth
Of Days of Yore.

You vein
The Glistening Glade of Memories
With your
Brooks of Aqueous Emerald.

Tis' the
Phantasmagoric Plane
Where still
My wayworn spirit wanders, wearily
In search of the magic
To enfetter
The Hands of Fate
(For they conspire against us).

Swifter than your descent
Into my soul
(Five seconds still and flat)
By
The nexus of your affections,
You evanesced
Like vapor,
Yet
I shall not concede to
The Malevolent Matriarch of Destiny.

For you
O, Breath of Life,
Forsook me not
So I sublime all stains
Tarnishing my flesh
By cries to The Ethereal.

At midday
Awaiting the Twilight
I long for
The birth of The Womb of Aether’s
Progeny,
Starlit winds.

I muse
Swimmingly in Seas of Reminiscence,
Banished from that Blackened Bastion
Of Shadowed Heavens,
For when darkness shrouds
My dreams can be seen
Draping the skies.

I then fathom,
You must not be far off,
Wishing,
Hoping,
Believing
That perhaps
You too
Wonder upon stars
Longing to find that one
That entwines us anew.

You shall alight,
Upon me once more
As
August Sun’s Nimbus
(If only for a moment)
Is thwarted
By
Ebony Miasma
That drenches Cimmerian skies.

In search
Of Ardor’s Light abiding in
The Sylvan Shrine of Your Numinous Eyes
I plead that
The Crag oppress
The Coals of Tribulation,
Until my anguish is
A Diamond Heart.

The pilgrimage
I must bear,
Must be traveled by
The Adamantine alone.

Where have you gone,
Tree of Life?
Why have you withered,
Yggdrasil?

Do I possess
The Eradia of Souls,
By which you shall
Effloresce?

I would halt the cogs of time,
Relinquish my liberty,
To slumber for eternity
In crystal stasis
By your side.

Even in that crystalline quietude,
I would be eminent,
I would be exalted,
I would be ennobled,
In the knowingness that
Your
Stalwart Heart
Radiates
Just beside me.

I exhale Empyrean Winds
When rapt in reverie,
Yearning to be
Captive to your devotion,
Yours alone.

The Bliss of Your Most Holy Kiss
Would signet me
With the
Bounty of Your Name
Burnishing the skin
On my lips.

Though ephemeral,
Your presence divined,
Your presence
Was my anointing.

To be solaced
By the astral resonance emitted
By your touch
Sent the
Pulse of Nirvana
Surging, rippling,
Like a kaleidoscope tide,
Down my spine

You are
The Waters of Vitality
That floweth from
The Creeks of Eden,

You have been
Poured upon my palate
From the
Goblet of Redemption
That I may drinketh
Of
Supernal immortality.

When once again we meet,
Perhaps the tears you summoned
From my spirit
By your
Stirring caress
Shall have absolved me
Of the pangs
In loving a man
(And man alone).

Perhaps then,
The sentiments
I pine to profess,
Will resound.

A melody
Sung in legato,
A  mellifluous melisma,
Flawlessly delineated
And
Intonation in deiform
Or perhaps,
Flowering fioritura
Lacing airwaves,
By the Empress Coloratura.

Perhaps then, piety
Betwixt you and I,
Will waft the air
And I might then,
Permit my quaking body
To succumb to
You alone.

Until that morn,
I shall be vigilant,
Counting the Dawns,
Counting the Twilights,
Until
I can gaze
Into your forested eyes
If even for but a moment.

For even but a moment
Spent with you,
Will bleed a nostalgia
Across my mind's sky,
Painting clouds crimson with passion,
And
That I shall revere,
And
That shall last
And last
And,
Last… And
Last.

O, it will last,
To Elysian Infinity.

∞
            I am a vestige,
               But I shall live once more,
                  In the light of memories
                       That blossom, are perennial,
                           And imbibe the dazed glory of the past
                       Until the past is vanquished
                 By a future that is fragrant
             With the mist of romance
          And eclipses the simulacrum,
       A fictitious sun of the infernal masquerade,
    The antithesis of the truest holy,
Then, rapture of life shall mystify no longer,
For the Numen of Truth,
  Shall cleanse creation without a drop of façade,
      His Providence shall emancipate the hollow,
             The Death of Dreams shall writhe
               In everlasting abeyance,
                 Absolving our wayward spirits,
                  The Winds of Change,
                  The Scourge of Pain,
               And
          The Loveless Wraiths
        That haunted our husks
      Shall be transcended for aeons,
  And tribulation made distant, made nebulous
As the Genesis of Time and Space itself
  For we embark on an exodus,
     Beseeching salvation to redeem us
        When the Requiem of Iniquity
           Is triumphed by everlasting cadence.

Be Valiant,
                 Be Sapient,
                             Be Love
                                       And
                                          By this
                                                You shall conquer the world
                                                           ∞

starry starry night
dazed clouds with tomorrows intent
if you cannot find eyes that feel like your favorite work of art
and hands that hold the halt of every beating drum
keep looking
breath that feels like the likelihood of lovers never meeting again
legs that carry the weight of your worlds entire contentment
arms that welcome the most dreadful of sins
if you have not found
the shoulder on which you can forfit your deepest civil wars
keep searching
you will
i have

He's the one, my heart told me.
Here I am, once broken..why? no one could ever tell me.
This being has entered my life I once thought was a living lie, but sweet possession he had shown me.

Am I fooling myself, I don't think I am...the way he kissed my lips, his warm touches against my skin.
Here I am, ready to become a slave for him, dazed as he clutches my hand.

You drifted in and out of dreams, the rush that took over me, the timing of his love could not of come a better time.

These are the things love can do?
Is this me being really happy?
...because I felt it, in his kisses...I have missed him so much.

This feeling is so seldom, and I am scared, not of love but how much I am able to give, yet for the first time it is shared equally.

He, in his own right, is a gem that will for ever dazzle in my eyes, the way he looks at me and tells me he loves me...how much I truly do. This is what love can do**

Shantel Broderick

when you said
i love you
it was a dizzying accident—

a crashing wave—
leaving bubbles of a nervous laugh
and a glimmering embrace.

your gaze rapidly flashed
down, and i hid
my wonder-flooded face—

in the surge of one moment,

we were too
dazed to dive into the surf
of that torrential magnificent.

10:35 p.m.

Again the man ate too much for his own good. He could barely sit long enough in his car ride home without an involuntary bowel movement threatening to ruin the interior leather of his new convertible car. The same convertible he happened to clean earlier that day, and for the second time that week. Barley able to transition out of his car he wobbled his way to his front door and into his house away from the fascist eyes of his affluent neighbors. He plopped to the living room floor assuming the only position his body was capable of. As he lay spreadeagle on his back uncomfortable and slightly anxious he ripped his shirt off in fear of suffocation. The spinning fan above brought waves of nausea if he starred at it for too long. Rubbing his naked protruding belly seemed to be a brief fix for the brewing pain in his stomach, but then the pain turned for the worse. He felt the sidings of his stomach stretched and the food nearly about to overflow back out of his mouth. A small burp came from his abdomen and he could taste the food as it rose and steamed in the back of his throat. He questioned himself In agony, "Why?". Why would he continue to spoil the treat of dining out at his favorite restaurant in town just to come home in disgust and pain? Is it an inability to stop himself from ordering the biggest plates of food and forcing every single grain of it into his mouth? Or are the pictures that show the plates of food just too enticing for his self control? Is it that the price seems right, therefore it only seems logical to order the full plate and its copious amount of sides to choose from? Perhaps it is just because his finances allow him to and his lack of appreciation for what sparse living feels like, or even worse famine. With no real acknowledgment of the nonrefundable resources he so easily exhaust, not to mention the physical harm done to his body, he was doomed for failure. He winced as he rolled to his side. No burp could subdue the agony of each turn in his stomach. He feared at any second his dinner would decorate his luxurious new rug that he took so much pride in. So much pride it was not uncommon he would insist his guest to bend down and feel the plushness of it every time they stepped on it. Still the war raged in his abdomen. Focused on his breathing, he shut his eyes in hopes of a get away. Struggling to remain still he reassured himself to breath.

11:07 p.m.

Suddenly, like a light switch found in a dark room a life changing truth was revealed to him. One so beautifully powerful it was to change him for good. The awareness of this truth would put an end to his pain and suffering, his lies and imperfections. There was now an answer to the constant void in his stomach, his unquenched hunger, the glass half empty. No longer was he a prisoner of deception. There was an overwhelming fleeting of demons and a mountain of weight lifted. His vision was as clear and vivid as it could ever be. The bliss was not ignorance, not anymore...it was unfeigned truth. For the first time ever he could see life for what it really was. It felt like a lifetime of emotions in one moment. Simplicity surrounded him in every direction. He felt the joy of complete freedom. The weightlessness of eternal peace. He was to tell the world of this untapped truth brought to him. A new and better way to live. An actual sustainable lifestyle free of judgement.

Then without his consent, he abruptly stood up. Dazed and in a state of confusion, he glanced at the clock.

11:11 p.m.

He then looked down and saw what his life cleansing truth was. He had simply soiled himself while asleep, ruining his new living room rug.