"do you feel illuminated?" he said.

at first, nothing.  then a wave came over my head all gloopy feeling my whole body i leaned back on him and looked at her.  she grinned and leaned forward cupping both hands to my ear and she whispered “remember this for your book.”  i cried so many no tears always coming always coming.  “i’ll have to come back” he said.  i know they’re staring at me.  i was starting to feel better but then started this writing the words had to keep coming but the less that i breathe and try to feel better i’m writing these words also to feel better the words are gripping me consuming me i’m letting go its worse ever feeling his heartbeat his heartbeat on me,  “i like to focus on my heartbeat.”  i like to focus on my breathing. its creeping heaving and in beat with beating.  beating my pen.  my pen is beating me at this game i can’t write fast enough, careful enough.  there will surely be words lost and that scares me and yet i can’t stop, i always keep going.  

(i have been somewhere else.  and cannot bring everything back with me.  like monica says, being a writer is a lonely place to be and it was.  it was.)

********************************

the duality.  the two opposing sides.  one evil, enchanting me on forward through the beautiful shapes on the wall.  i saw a bird with wings back.  i saw a low strapped helmet.  red.  i saw your face. and i was coming into it.  so gorgeous.  mesmerizing.  and as i got closer i got closer to hell.  the demons jumped through the wall and grabbed at me, at my eyes, green things with fingernails and begging me to go ahead lose myself.  then i’d get wave of absolute normalcy, the light.  a promise that reality still exists but demons whispering the lies that psychedelia is worthier.  constantly fighting. giving in, slipping by degrees (which is a phrase I stole from stephen dunn), then fighting again.  

my throat hurts from puking.  i was so aware in the beginning.  an uninvited loss of control.  i couldn’t move my body.  my head weighed four hundred pounds.  tingly sensations feeling awful.  and then my knees disappeared.  is anybody in there?  i could feel them looking at me, laughing at me but i couldn’t do a thing.  intensely frightened, and no escape.  i wanted to scream, to cry, to express every thought, sensation, word-play but i was so intensely aware of how crazy it would sound and the laughs that would follow.

then it became incredibly important to remember what lauren had said so i yelled for someone to get my journal.  i had to write it down and then i couldn’t stop.  shaking.  the campfire was burning my leg.  my head got foggier.  my stomach queasier.  i couldn’t stop writing.  even now.  i can’t stop, the more i write, the more words stay trapped in my head.  i was miserable.  

“do you feel illuminated?” he said.  

“no” i said.  “its dark.”