Blown Cover

The first time I tried acid,

I felt like I was pissing myself the whole night

like one of those sprinklers

watering a suburban lawn,

yellow sunbeams flying out of my pants;

I’d sprung leaks all over.

I smiled a banana smile

that stretched past my cheeks

and into the atmosphere

floating around my glowing head,

and that piece of pizza

I was trying to eat

was the funniest thing I’d ever seen:

a cartoon pizza

with pepperonis like moon craters,

a real revelation.

The next morning,

the trees were made of neon plastic.

I could see past everything

and into its fakeness

like a waking dream

inside of a cardboard diorama.

The birds outside my window

were screaming in my ear,

telling me I’d never be the same again

like Adam biting into an apple.

The next time,

someone had read an article

written by Tim Leary

and decided to close all the doors

and shutter all the windows,

duct tape the holes where light got in

to create a nothingness

ripe for creation

I willed myself out of existence

like a popped balloon.

I saw ashes floating on my eyelids,

opened my eyes to see nothing,

closed my eyes to see the same nothing,

and I was gone.

I screamed a dead man’s nightmare.

The lights flashed on.

My friends wore concern

like business suits.

I told them I was dead,

then closed my eyes into Heaven

where I watched the outlines of angels

fly circles through the holes in my brain.

I’d found Nirvana;

it was a counterfeit enlightenment.

The next time,

I saw a horse jump out of the television

and was taken on a zeppelin

to see God.

He was a giant robot

and scores of people

inside His juggernaut body

were standing on networks of ladders,

hammering out dents

in his metal skin.

We sat at a white plastic table

and He told me that

everything had already been done.

He opened his chest

like a dusty old book

and I jumped in.

I saw people searching shelves

in an ancient library.

I picked up a book and it was empty,

its pages like crumbling mud.

I tried another;

it was also empty.

The books were empty ad infinitum.

Language had disappeared from the world.

When I found myself,

I was lying in the grass

and the sun was rolling over me

like a steamroller;

it was like a massive yellow womb.

I convinced myself

that I was the last person alive on Earth

and walked towards the boundary

of my friend’s backyard.

My friend pulled me by my arm

like a worried parent.

I could see it happening

a million times over

in the kaleidoscope of time and space.

His mom drove me home in her minivan.

I told my parents I’d had a heat stroke

working beneath the summer sun,

but it wasn’t me talking;

I was no longer there.

I’d left the building.

Every time after that,

people were like zombie lizards,

their faces melting into darkness,

and I heard angels crying

like mourners at a funeral,

so I gave up on my dead end search.

My mind was like confused geese

trying to migrate,

but disappearing over the waves

beneath the twilight stars.

The dream wore off day by day

as time unrolled like a roll of duct tape.

I found the remaining shards of my mind

like a broken windowpane,

pieced them together

into something I could use,

and tried to blend in

like an undercover cop

who’d peeked behind the curtain

and could tell no one what he’d seen,

fearing he’d blow his cover.