Category: Drruugz

Mushrooms Trip in Elk, CA 08/21/21

There are
Three parts
Of OM

AHHHH
—Open mouth wide
Release fully
All breath

OHHHH
—Narrows lips
As if to whistle
Focus sound
Drop pitch

MMMMM
—Close lips
Smiling, similar
To satisfaction
After eating

Then silence
Before repeating

>>>

My back starts hurting, usually, when I am seated or standing for a long period.

Why am I seated or standing for a long period? To work.

Why am I heeding the call to work and ignoring the pain in my back?

>>>

Self-conscious

I do
Or say something

As I would
Alone

Without realizing
I am not

>>>

A handle pokes out from under the blanket draped over the daybed. I put the pan beneath the bed before I went to sleep last night, in case of an intruder.

Usually, I write well when I take mushrooms, or at least more creatively. I lie here, on pillows on the floor, having taken them once more, waiting for something to write about.

When I take mushrooms, I sit, lie, lounge, walk in circles, but mostly just wait in between bouts of writing. WHY CAN I NOT DO THIS SOBER?

Mushrooms remind me how to live like a child, but then I go back to living in the adult world. They treat me like one of them because I look like one of them. I often want to do things that are not customary in the adult world, either because they are just not usually done or because the law explicitly forbids it. When walking on the sidewalk the other day, I was curious about a shrub. But I could only see its leaves. I was interested in the trunk and the branches. I thought to get down on my hands and knees there on the sidewalk to have a look, but then these other thoughts came marching one after another into my mind like soldiers. One of the soldiers said, the sidewalk is dirty. The next said, someone will see you. The next said, you are not dressed like a gardener. And so I went, walking on down the sidewalk, not knowing what I would have seen if I had lifted up the skirt of the shrub.

I finish one piece of writing. I want to continue on. I have more to say—things I thought of while writing, but they were unrelated or otherwise wouldn’t fit in the prose, because of the technicality of it, and at the moment I was writing, they wouldn’t fit presently, so I carried on with whatever else and my other thoughts waiting in the queue were forgotten. But I have now remembered some of them! Alas, they are only parts. Their beauty was, and still is, in their belonging to and being placed in each of the appropriate stations inside of the whole. Now, I must forget them, maybe forever. Whether they will return to me, in my mind, is up to forces greater than me. My only choice in the matter is either to hold them and have them as they are for me now, or to let them go and know, twofold—that they may never return to me, but also that new and different others may come to fill their absences. Consistently faced with his choice, how deep shall I go with any one thought? How much time shall I spend with her? Does she have more to teach me, more to say? Or might I learn more from others—different, younger ones? Are my wishes the only ones to be considered in this matter? Now I am thinking no longer of thoughts, but of my relationship with my girlfriend.

On my knees, on the rug, I become aware of the classical music playing. I close my eyes, raise my arms in the air above my head, bend them at the elbow, twirl my fingers, curve the side of my body into a bow, and dance to the music—slowly, softly. I had a thought that someone might be watching. The possibility that someone might be watching made me ask myself, should I be dancing in this way? And now other thoughts come of this. First, we are at a cabin in the woods, just my girlfriend and I, and it is unlikely that anyone is watching. Second, if someone were watching, why should I dance any differently or stop? Third, why is it that someone else watching makes me consider whether I should or should not be doing something? Not even them ACTUALLY watching, just the THOUGHT that they MIGHT be makes me second-guess the way in which I am dancing, alone in a cabin in the woods. Perhaps it is too feminine—the way my side bends into a bow and my fingers twirl. I am a man. Should I, therefore, not be dancing like a woman?

As a writer, I think of myself as such—as being one, a writer. When I write, if it seems like it might be becoming a piece that will be well-received—like a young boy shows early athletic promise and might grow up to become a great baseball player—then the thought that it might be so interrupts me while I have not yet finished with making the piece whole. I think to myself, what if so-and-so reads this, or if they publish me in such-and-such magazine? And then what will that mean for me? Riches, fame, and all the other gifts that are usually given to the main character in a story that ends well. But it interrupts me, this dream of glory, as I am still in the act of making the darn thing.

I worry that I can only write well when I have eaten mushrooms. I don’t believe this is true. I think I write well even when I have not eaten mushrooms. It is the READING that is different after having eaten mushrooms. Everything I read seems to be right and true, fantastic and new. It seems this way whether I have written it or someone else has. When I am writing, I am also reading what I have written. On mushrooms, what I am writing sounds wonderful. I have had this experience several times—eating mushrooms, writing, deeming it well-written. Thusly must the belief, first, and worry, next, have arisen.

Now, as an aside, being an aside because I believe my previous thought has concluded well where it has, still, I might add: I have read, while on mushrooms, what I wrote, while NOT on mushrooms, and found it to be the work, not of a genius but, of one relatively advanced in their craft. I have also read, while NOT on mushrooms, what I wrote, while on mushrooms, and found it to be the work of a lunatic who aspired to write, discovered mushrooms, thought they might aid in his writing process, ate them too often, and never stayed sober long enough to master the intricacies of the craft, which can only be learned by long hours of bored, tedious, and frustrated trying-and-failing, interspersed with reading the greats and wondering—of some of them, why can I not write as well as this myself; of others, are they really as great as everyone says they are?

While writing on mushrooms, many thoughts come to mind while I am already engaged with writing a specific one. Some of these I can forget easily, as they showed a little promise of extraordinariness. Others, those that show more promise, make it difficult for me to decide—between cutting short my current engagement (writing a thought that, before, what the same as this other one than I now consider, a question mark) and ignoring it to delve deeper where I am already standing, up to my knees in disturbed dirt, digging deeper still, to find any stones unturned. They linger, like a first taste that forbids a full bite. With one hand they wag a finger in front of my face that says “no, not yet.” The other hand they hold out, palm facing up. They are asking for something. A price. The price I must pay if I wish to bite into, chew, and mull over the thought to which I have not yet committed. The price is the one with whom I am already. Both, I cannot have. I must place the one I have, still an infant, into the upturned palm. I will never know what the youngling might have grown up to be. But, oh! Here is another, newer, brighter. If only shining its light to attract, if the flame cannot stay lit, if it proves to be no better than the one I had before, then I will go searching once more, and again—the two hands: one, wagging its finger; the other, an upturned palm.

I feel that one of us will win, and the other must then lose. Why must it be this way? I read recently that, based on our evolutionary predispositions, the man desires to spread his seed far and wide, while the woman wants to retain a man to provide for and protect herself and any children they may have together. Is this true? How can I say? But let’s pretend that it is. The desires of the man and the woman are opposing. The women cannot retain the man while he continues to spread his seed. Or, maybe … Already I see margins of possibility in which the man and the woman, in the context of a monogamous relationship between them, must not necessarily be opposing forces. Alas, here I am on the ground floor, writing my own thoughts, while my girlfriend is upstairs writing hers (I can hear the keys clacking on her keyboard), and we are breaking up. It’s not a surprise. We’ve been talking about it. At one point, she wanted me to pack my things and leave that same day. Somehow we ended up here together in this beautiful cabin nestled in the forest of Northern California outside of town called Elk. And I return to my beginning question: if we are to separate, why must it feel like one side is winning and the other is losing? Because one side chooses to end it while the other wants it to continue. There is the opposition: one wants it to end while the other wants to continue. In this situation, both cannot have what they want. Unless, maybe the relationship can transform. One wants it to end, but maybe it doesn’t need to end on the whole. Would the other be okay with a few modifications, in part? Could the relationship still live on, after the modifications? This makes me realize: relationships are always transforming. Because they involve individuals who are always changing. What happens when one changes in a way that the other doesn’t want them to? Then it becomes complicated. She asks, were you this way when I met you? How could I not have seen it? All my other relationships were the same way. Blaming—me, herself, past boyfriends. But the facts remain: people change, relationships transform. Now, the question is: how do we navigate the transformation?

I thought I heard her crying. I couldn’t tell if it was just the music or if she really were up there whimpering, sniffling. I got up and walked over to the steep steps (almost a ladder) of the old-water-tower-turned-cabin. I grabbed the railing and climbed up. There she was—her caramel skin in contrast to the white sheets, her curly hair slightly frizzy (as it gets when she’s been rolling around in bed). I asked how she was doing, if she was okay, or something like that (I forget exactly what I said). We skated, as we tend to, like those water bugs, along the surface, before descending. Then she told me that she HAD been crying. I told her, oh, I’m sorry, well, that is why I came up here. Then she said oh, did you hear me? You couldn’t have. It was only a tear. I wasn’t sobbing. I told her about how I thought I had heard crying in the music. We marveled. I must have FELT her crying, somehow, even though I wasn’t actually hearing her. She was crying because she read a few pages out of a book she found on the steps by a Vietnamese author about how he was thankful for his mother and for memories of when she would take him to the mall. My girlfriend’s mother is Vietnamese. I suspect that is why she felt a closeness to this particular book. She said, “I realized I want to cry more. I want to have things in my life that make me cry. Not just shallow melodrama. You know? Like (and she preceded to describe what she meant and how she felt in words that were perfect, but all I can remember is …) things that make you feel like you’re on the brink of being alive.” The moment was sublime, terribly so. I, knowing our relationship was ending, one tear already on my cheek and more welling. Her, being beautiful in her body as she always is, but then also the depths and intricacies of her emotions, as well as her lexical prowess to communicate them. The trees through the window behind her, bending in the wind, a glint on the glass making their green look red. Ah! What is a man to do? Other than audibly call for his deity, cry more than he already has, and shield his eyes, only to pry them back open, unveiling the portal to his heart, inviting in the moment that is more than can be captured by any artist, no matter how skilled, nor how numerous his forms. Only I, as I was in that moment, the material world as it was, chakras balancing, energy fields in opposition, formless feelings floating, angels singing—all conspiring to torture me, as if all the potency of life were distilled down into one drink, one swallow. As soon as it touched my lips I sputtered and spat. If it were spread out and watered down, so that I could have had time to process, make rational, cram into my own understanding—then I could have taken it. As it was—me, her, and the trees through the window behind her—I had to run. In this case, I slowly descended the steep steps, holding onto the railing. It took some willpower and a great deal more conditioned concern for my bodily well-being not to suddenly fling myself down them as fast and as recklessly as my heart and soul were fleeing. But no matter the manner in which I did, I ran, nonetheless. I ran like I always do. I ran like a thief into a field clutching above my head the bouquet of flowers she had given me, petals flying off of them as I went. See, I’ve never been able to stay put there and just listen to her. As soon as she starts being beautiful (which is immediately, and always) I run away with derivatives, hand-me-downs of her to render into my heart, so that others will pay me, praise me, or whatever will validate the male equivalent of female beauty. I do this, even as I am somewhat aware that I am running in a wide circle, the path of which is laden with obstacles, deceits, let-downs, repetitious exhaustion, self-loathing, and various other trials which must be faced by a man working his way up through the world to be worthy of a woman at the top—all of this, I persist in putting myself through, even as the woman of my dreams lies here in bed asking me, why will you not listen to me? Why will you not come to bed? Why will you not stay?

*** This prose above has the same idea as the poem, HER HONEY. I need to return to that poem. The idea is there. It is true. But it is not yet well-written.

When I forget to breathe, I cannot make up for it by taking rapid deep breaths, which is my habit. I failed, was resultantly worse off, may even suffer lasting damage, but there are some mistakes in the past that I can’t set right presently. I can only learn from them and avoid making the mistake again.

I am realizing, now that I’ve come down from the mushrooms high but still writing, that STAYING PRESENT is important for writing well. This is a partial answer to a recurring question: why do I write better on shrooms, compared to being sober? When I write sober, it usually goes like this: I am inspired by some sensory input, thought, or feeling, and then I formulate an IDEA thereof. I thus interrupt the otherwise seamless flow from stimulation to words, by having an IDEA of the stimulation before I begin to write. I end up writing about an impostor, the intermediary idea. While on shrooms, I stay present. I write about whatever comes up. And I write honestly, rarely second-guessing.

Posted on by Cole

Sober moment

After I
Have gotten drunk
And danced
I remember
There are things
I’m supposed to have
And I check
My pockets
In a sober moment
For my wallet
And keys

August 08, 2021 at 04:37PM

Posted on by Cole

Burnt the fuck out man

Have we done enough
In the meantime

To earn our right
To eat and sleep
Again

God damn
That’s all we do

Eat, sleep, eat, sleep
Try to fuck
With a semblance
Of the passion
That some great great
Grandfather of mine
Who I will never know
Fucked with
The passion he fucked with
That birthed
All the generations
That fucked with
Gradually less and less passion
As certain men and women
Fucked with such passion
To birth, not more
Men and women
But advances in science
That established so strongly
Our position on this earth
As a species
That those of us now
Don’t know what the fuck
To do with ourselves

It’s all a big sham
In these modern times

The only life that’s real
Is the surviving
The eating and being eaten
The sex and reproduction

And these originals acts
We still perform

But we are only
Going through the motions

There are no
Noble professions left
Other than
Being a burnout

Our species has burnt out

The only generations
That had to fight
In order to survive
Have long since died

Everything we do now
Is just killing time

Literally thousands of people
Over thousands of years
Have spent their lifetimes
Trying to come up with
Some meaning for our existence
And they can’t fucking do it

We’ve taken over the whole planet
And now we just want it to mean something
In the meantime
As we continue to exist
On the planet we’ve conquered
Each of us as individuals even
Want our individuals lives to mean something

Fuck me man
For once I should publish a poem
With all the expletives
And the rawness
As I wrote it

Because god damn
Of course I’m going to edit out
All the curse words
When I’m sitting in the apartment
And not feeling a damn thing
Other than the desire
To make the poetry good somehow

August 08, 2021 at 02:58PM

Posted on by Cole

Lift off

I’m susceptible to it
Today
To lift off

I can tell because
I take
My first sip
Of tea

And my brain bumps
The top
Of my skull

Like an astronaut
In zero gravity

And when I look
Through my eyes

Like windows
On a spaceship

Everything
That just before

Seemed perfectly
Terrestrial

Now seems
Terribly alien

July 22, 2021 at 10:52AM

Posted on by Cole

The tea is brewing

In its glass pot
On the marble countertop
In the other room

But I might just wait
Let it cool
And heat up more hot water
A little later

After I’ve done my work
That might not go so well
If my hands are shaking
And my mind is racing

As tends to happen
When I drink tea

July 22, 2021 at 10:48AM

Posted on by Cole

Drunk

After days of drunkenness
Sobriety seems
A more novel experience

Just to change my mind
Which is the same reason
I started drinking
In the first place

July 15, 2021 at 08:39PM

Posted on by Cole

Nashville

As if I had just seen
My fingernails
For the first time
Pissing
In the basement
Bathroom
Of the bar
On Broadway
For what seemed like
Forever
So what did I have to do
But look at my nails
And wait
To finish my piss
And then go upstairs
To get the drink
They said they would
Order for me

July 09, 2021 at 09:59PM

Posted on by Cole

On Shrooms 07/02/21 (Poetry)

Bim! Bim! Bim!
The experiences come

Crammed once
Into thoughts

Crammed twice now
Into words

What is left over for you
My poor dear lover

Who I have not
Yet met

Though I wish to meet
All of you

If you happen
To be multiple

Or just one
Would be fine too

If you really are the One

Having not yet found you
Oh grandmaster God

With more pronouns
Than I can fit on a line

While still maintaining
The rhythm of the words

Broken up
By appropriate line breaks

The music of it
Makes so much sense

That it need be born
Into poetry

Which can be reduced
To oblivion

As long as that oblivion
Is still broken into verse

Because there must be
A music to oblivion

It cannot come all at once
Just bah!

And there it is
No, it must come on somehow

And so
There must be the line breaks

It comes a little
And then breaks

Comes a little more
And then breaks again

You are feeling it, aren’t you?
As if you were here
With me now

Fuck the couplet

Let it be one line
If it wills

The blind adherence to form
Has been the circumcision
Of so much good art
That would have otherwise
Bled on past the margins

Margins, which our boundless souls
Must be forced into
For how else could we survive?
And by “survive,” I mean
For our physical bodies
To persist, in time

Out of sync, I’ve gotten
The words overpowered the rhythm
Which is how it happens
Sometimes
Like back when I said
Fuck the couplet

All so harmonious
And rhythmic
It feels to me now
As it’s all music
On mushrooms

But how can I bring it back
Why
Do I need to bring it back?
But then
What am I to do?
Mushrooms all the time?

Is this life for me?
Or is it for others?
Beautiful, it is, when
By being me
I am for others
In a way they want

And so I wish for it
Crying on my knees
Begging please
But I would jump up
Just so giddy
The very next second

You would say I am crazy
As we are accustomed to calling
Anyone who can experience
Those two very different emotions
Deep serious sadness
And singing joy
So suddenly
One after the other

But I can, I tell you
I can
So much
That it seems most appropriate
To dance and sing
Out of my skin even
Explode into all of it
Around me
Return to what I know I am
But forget, I do
When I am not on mushrooms

And the problem
Is the rawness

How can I shave it down
Real particular
Into a needle that will pass
With little pain
Through the pore
Of a sober man

So the only pain he must endure
Is either
Reading, listening,
Or watching

Into his soul, I must pass
Somehow

How do I get in
Through his body

He has holes
His nose holes
His ear holes
His mouth hole
The pores of his skin

How can I get in?

Not to take you by force,
Dear brother, no

Take me, if you would
Please

I come onto you so strong
With all the desire
That is really my own desire
To be come onto
In disguise

Care not, we need
About who is coming
That we are coming
Together
While we still can
Is the point

But the great song and dance
Is just that
Called so
For a reason

The arts are how
We’ve all agreed
To come onto one another
And really enjoy it
With the ecstasy
That is otherwise only appropriate
Behind the closed doors of a bedroom

Where we have shut our sex
Into such a modern construction
For where did we fuck
Before there were closed doors
And beds with sheets

Out through the cracks
Around the hinges
Through the keyhole
Oozing out from behind that closed door

Our sex learned to define itself
Because getting out of the bedroom
Was only the first step
And then past
The guards at the door
Was the second step

So we disguised our sex
Into art
Song, dance, poetry
We sang to the guards
Danced to the guards
Read to the guards
And they let us go
Out of the doors

And we ran free
And ran and ran
Until we were exhausted and hungry
So we ate and slept
And then woke to run
But to where?

We ran for years
Until we realized
The love we were chasing
Came from the guards

The bedroom was ourselves
They locked us in there
Locked us in ourselves
What a trick!

And all the fucking desire we had
To fuck
Was for the guards
Whomever they may be
Anyone, really
Ourselves, even

The real question is:
Who built this house?
We don’t seek to punish you
But merely to show everyone
That you aren’t so great
So we can then proceed
With tearing the house down

Our sex need not be shut up
Who defined it as it has been?

I have gotten too particular
I do not wish for this to be a novel
Oh blah blah blah
I am back again
I have come back down from the mushrooms

It will continue on for some time now
Along the plateau
But the come up has come
And gone

July 02, 2021 at 03:46PM

Posted on by Cole

Where art thou, hangover

I woke up confused
By
Not feeling worse
Than I should have
And confused also
About
What to do
With myself
Other
Than whatever
Would make me feel better
But because
I did not know
Whether
I was
Sick to my stomach
Tired
Or just fine enough
To go down
For a swim
Which is what I eventually did
And so started
A day full
Of what wasn’t planned
But just happened
One thing
After another
And so passed
Another day
Of living
As pain-free
As possible

May 27, 2021 at 07:55PM

Posted on by Cole

Excerpts from A Trip in Montana

I am a little off balance now as I walk. And so it begins.

Large ants crawl on the Mexican blanket. I am interested in their movements.

The shadows have caught my attention as they dissipate with the movements of the clouds between the sun and the ground.

It is starting to open up. Ideas in my head seem to be connected.

My friends are talking on the deck above. I am on the patio below. Their words are disruptive. They are talking about college.

I have a desire to put on my shoes and go into the woods.

I am going into the woods, to discover species anew and to give them new names.

It is hard to write
With the light so bright
On white paper

As I put my pen to paper, I almost forget the words, but still they come to me somehow, flowing from objective reality itself, then through my senses, and seamlessly into Word.

I feel the sun hot on my shoulders through my shirt.

An ant crawls up the leg of my shorts.

I have found a convenient stump to sit on and write.

There is an ant on my left pointer finger, probing me with his antennae.

I need to get out of the sun. My neck is already burnt.

I am tripping, assuredly. I have wandered a bit farther into the woods, where there is some shade. I stepped across a crumbling trunk, like a balance beam, to get here.

I can hear my friends laughing behind me.

I begin to feel fear for the future; fear because this good feeling will come to an end.

I remember the Bene Gesserit mantra: “Fear is the mind killer.”

The fear comes from my ego. When I remember that I am part of all this, the fear goes away.

There are certain words that reassure me. They are often phrases or quotations. Some degree of spirituality, it seems, is just to memorize words, and then, when the right time comes:

(1) Recognize the appropriate situation.

(2) Recite the words in your mind.

(3) Let action flow forth from your body with the realized meaning of those words.

Again, I start to think of the future, and ill feelings immediately follow. Stay present! Stay mindful! This is the heart of my practice.

I fear so much for the future. I fear so much for my ego.

I am concerned for the physical health of my body.

I am concerned from the performance of my financial investments.

Even as a bug lands on my hand, I check to make sure it is not a bee that can sting me. So what if it is?

I am a part of all this. If the bee stings me, it is a part of all this.

It is like the book that I cannot recall the name of. Ishmael, there it is.

He talks of how man was in sync with nature before. This is how it should be. This is the answer.

All of man’s developments have placed him in a position above nature. Many of man’s modern problems would be solved if he would return to his place in nature.

Now, that seems unlikely. It would mean the death of many humans on our overpopulated planet. We have trodden too far down this track.

I hear my friends laughing in the distance. I wonder if they appreciate the deeper power of the trip. Or do they take it all to be just funny visuals?

As they speak with each other, they are kept from going deeper into their own minds.

I think of the time. I do not have a watch. I am fully tripping now.

I wonder how long I have been standing in this place. My legs have held me just fine, but when I look at them, I am unsure of how they operate.

I do feel taller. This is something Sean mentioned he often feels while tripping.

When I misspell a word or scribble, I think, “Don’t worry, they’ll get it.”

But I must realize, they won’t get it. All of THIS, is captured only in my humble words.

I should stop writing and enjoy it.

It occurs to me to draw.

I laugh at myself for thinking I could draw such beauty.

I start to feel ill feelings. I feel them run a familiar track inside of me. I see them, like rushing rivers, encountering the dam of my heavily-fortified ego.

I observe, dangerously at this time, what my ego is built of.

The wind blows. I let it pass. I pick it back up.

My ego is built from who I think I am. My history, my present physical body, what others say about me …

It is hard to keep track of this thought.

I am fully tripping. I have stood in one place for so long, I had almost forgotten what it’s like to move.

I am fully tripping—these exact words occur to me again.

I constantly have these thoughts:

– What should I be doing?

– Is this, what I’m doing right now, productive?

And then I start to think into the future about what will be most productive …

I have to remind myself, that is not the game we are playing.

Stay here. Stay present.

It strikes me how easily I forget. I have an ill feeling, and then I am distracted, and then I forget.

Even control over my body seems to be something I could part ways with, other than for the convenience of my fingers which hold this pen to write.

Things occur to me as being beautiful, and in that moment of occurrence, nothing else matters. My senses are fully immersed in the beauty, like the sight of a crumbling tree trunk, split open and filled with forest debris. So dead, but so perfectly at home.

I think, how will these words sound to the others who read them?

I remind myself, it does not matter. Stay here. Stay present.

Of all the bugs, mosquitoes are the only ones I swat. I do not so much mind the prick and the drawing of blood. I am more worried about disease.

This idea of disease, planted in me by society, affects my behavior towards other living creatures. Again, I think of reading Ishmael.

I cough to spit. It surprises me that I have a throat and a mouth.

I am so at home in the woods right now. The wind blows through my hair, just like it does through the leaves in the trees.

I hear something behind me, a rustle in the leaves. I feel the desire to make myself unseen, to crouch low, to hide.

I feel that I understand my ancient ancestors in this moment. At the same time, I feel the call back to civilization.

I think of my friends and the house, and I smile.

I am surprised to feel my facial muscles smiling.

As the sun shines and the birds chirp, I am filled with so much love for nature.

A moment ago, it was dark. The clouds covered the sun. I was scared of what I could not see among the trees. I was alone.

I am resistant to going back, to have to talk.

I know it will be hard to stay out here for too long. I do not know the ways of the woods. I would lose. I do not want to lose, and so starts the civilization of man.

I was born civilized. At this point, it would take much undoing.

I see a runner on the street through the woods. It invokes a feeling of familiarity.

From where I stand writing in the woods, I feel perfectly balanced between far away from, and still close by, to civilization.

If I were farther into the woods alone, I might feel a more primal fear for my survival.

As I see things on the forest floor, I lean down with my paper and pen, like a photographer with a camera.

I hear trucks on the road. I remember what people have told me in the past.

I just feel so happy, particularly to be inside of my body.

To be contained in a physical being, capable of realizing thought.

The body is a beautiful thing. More than just the beauty of its form, but also of its function—to realize thoughts and feelings.

The importance of yoga, to cultivate this connection between body and mind, occurs to me now.

It is a practice I could spend my whole lifetime learning.

In contrast, I am less interested in certain aspects of my job. There are aspects that seem far removed from man’s natural state. Like keeping the body seated in the same desk chair all day.

—

Woah! A mother moose and a child moose just passed, not more than forty feet from where I am standing here in the woods.

At first, I felt immense fear. I could not tell what was near me in the woods, other than that it was big—bigger than a bird or a chipmunk.

Your eyes play tricks on you between the branches in the trees.

I am being bitten by mosquitoes. I choose to return to civilization, knowing the risks.

I am sad to leave. I must remember the connectedness to nature that I experienced here.

—

I hear my friends and their words. I cannot speak to them. They must come out here into the woods and experience it for themselves.

All around me, the forest floor is alive, mostly with ants. There are also mosquitoes, flying and landing.

There are many aspects. You do not need to fear that it will be over. It will continue. Whether your ego is involved, does not matter. You are a part of it all.

But these mosquitoes are insufferable!

I feel a drop of rain—another element forcing me to return.

My friends talk too much.

They do not wait in silence long enough to experience it themselves.

—

I look back at Marie, I think to talk to her as Marie—she, of the flesh and blood, with whom I share memories.

But she is not the same, as she appears to me now. She is participating in the One. She is a soul, and that’s all that matters.

I think of my own flesh. Am I housed in the bones I would choose? What does it matter, if we’re all the same.

These words are so meager. What art form then? What form could capture this most fully?

There is the question, first, of what art form could capture a lived experience most fully. Then, there is the question of what art form could capture THIS (tripping) most fully.

It occurs to me now that the “come up” has passed. We have arrived at the plateau.

—

I am not sure if any of the others would be willing to participate in this experience in the way that I participate in it.

The woods are a very clear analogy. Deeper in the woods, there is only the sound of wind in the leaves. The only movements are the ants on the ground.

Back at the house, there is music from man-made speakers, man-made words, and even man-made men.

These man-made men are the ones who do not understand.

I think of Ishmael again.

We come from nature, that is where we will find ourselves in order.

Man does not understand himself. Not even the accumulated knowledge of generations of man thinkers can understand one single man.

How then, can we expect man to build himself?

He cannot do the job of nature.

It occurs to me now, how brilliant the book Ishmael really is.

Even as I write these words, I realize that going back to read them will not be the same.

Impossible to achieve the same understanding.

—

I am aware of the ground being alive with ants. I cannot look anywhere on the ground where I do not see an ant.

These ants are like men—successful, relative to other species, and still working to further themselves.

The operations of nature make sense to me in terms of business. An enterprising species will take market share from others and win.

I almost caught a look of myself reflecting in the window, blue bandana. I looked away, not wanting to see my face.

Talking aloud to Marta, my voice sounds inadequate. I wish it were more musical.

—

You have to have your art form ready, before the experience.

When you are awash in the storm of your emotions, there must already be an artistic channel, into which that emotion might pour.

Without a specified channel, the emotion will search for one.

I am an emotional person, I realize now. I always have been. This emotion is my power. It fuels my actions.

—

If I allow it, the economy will engulf me here where I stand in this moment with the skills I have to offer, and my hopes and dreams to be used as motivators to put my skills to work.

The economy does not care where I land. It does not care what profession I choose. It will get use out of me, one way or another. This is management, the business of getting use out of people. And the managers report to investors, and so on.

This is the nature of the economy—investors pushing people to do things (who then push other people to do things) to make more money. It is the investor’s passion for more that sets the whole economy in motion.

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Getting drunk and writing poetry

Getting drunk

And listening to music

I start to write poetry again

And think to myself

It’s no wonder

I haven’t been able to write

As of late

Because I’ve been too sober

And without music

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Last beer

Beer bubbles

At the bottom of the glass

Make me sad

Because this was the last one

In the fridge

And I’ll have to switch

Over to white wine

After these last sips

Of good beer

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The music is loud

The music is loud now

No exclamation points in poetry

Is a rule I once read

But I’m going to break it

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because wow this moment

The music is loud

Did I already mention that?

Must be on account

Of my having had two beers

And already being buzzed

Because it’s been a while

Since I’ve gotten drunk

And danced around the room like this

The music is loud

And the windows are open

And it’s all alright

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Too real

Sometimes I see the world too real. I see that things are actually material and animated, driven by life forces. In a special moment, when not taken for granted, this seems to me truly incredible.

It becomes hard to keep on a conversation with someone as I start to marvel just at the fact that they are speaking and living and breathing in front of me, and I am such that I can, not only witness their life unfolding in front of me, but also interact, affecting their life with my own.

It becomes difficult not to suddenly exclaim as I realize this. I am sure I must have a glazed-over look in my eyes.

Posted on by Cole

untitled

I get here, I “arrive”

Is the only way

I can describe it

Once I’ve had the right amount of coffee

And lasted through the brief period

At the onset

When I worry

I might have had too much

Giving my mind time to adjust

To a state it’s not used to

Like climbing a mountain

Huffing and puffing

Until you get to the top

And take deep breaths

As you see what you’ve climbed for

So it is sitting here

With my headphones in

And all that is happening

In the coffee shop around me

Is no different

Than a Wednesday

When I am rushing through

But today

On a Saturday

With some time to sit and think

It is all art

And curious to me

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Sober trip

Rubbing my eyes

I enter into

This outer space

An oxymoron

To go into

What leads out

Like the small door

In the Wonka factory

Or the key

To Wonderland

I chase after

With eyes for legs

Abstract patterns

Like fireflies

In the night

Of my closed eyes

Forgetting everything

Like being a body

In a shower

Noticing only

The bright yellow halo

With a black hole

In the center

Pulsing and blurring

Off into the distance

Of my vision black

I run harder

To intensify this vision

Of my own internal

Solar system

Of dynamic stars

That dance

As I rub my eyes

Accustomed to seeing

The real world

Mixed up

Offering apparitions

In a dark world

Of my own UFOs

Where I can play

Like a child

Chasing after

What I do not yet

Understand

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Alley worship

At the end of a long little bit Alli Lough let Lough let Alli a man on his hands and knees on a cardboard Matt bows waving his arms shouting like he is worshiping not to a God I don’t think a guy that would’ve put him in this alley in his dirty clothes just something else probably if you made of his imagination maybe inspired by drugs maybe you’re just being in the alley too long I have to emphasize how long the alley is and it’s a dead end at the end I say this because he is so far away from everyone that is walking by the mouth of the alley on the sidewalk is very low and having a zone momentI wonder how long he’s been down there and if anyone has visited or maybe he chose to be alone on purpose for his worship

edited:

At the end of a long low lit alley a man on his hands and knees on a cardboard mat bows waving his arms shouting like he is worshiping, not to a God I don’t think, not a God that would have put him in this alley in his dirty clothes. But something else, maybe made up by his imagination, maybe inspired by drugs, maybe just from being in the alley too long.

I have to emphasize how long this alley is and it’s a dead end at the end. I say this because he is so far away from everyone that is walking by the mouth of the alley on the sidewalk. He is very alone and having his own moment.

I wonder how long he’s been down there and if anyone has visited or maybe he chose to be alone on purpose for his worship.

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high highs (1/6/20)

i know now not to ride the highs too high holding on past stratosphere onto space where i’m alone smiling looking around wondering who’s here in the black silence only do i realize after the bright light of the booster flare fades that i’m all alone in my ascent and look earthward for who i left already falling

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speech-to-text back and forth between apartment and laundromat 1/4/20

walking so fast I can’t say one way or another what I see clearly wanting for some clarity supposed to be separating safe from dangerous getting somewhere to satisfy hunger finding love of forcing me on primal being the main driver but being able just briefly on a Saturday like today to walk on Fillmore Street before noon sun shining in every darn thing looking gosh darn perfect that dog leashed to a traffic meter majestic that bookstore with all the books I would never want to read on its shelves each restaurant and café serving all the foods that I would want to eat every person I passed smiling seeming like they want to have a conversation with me and having all these thoughts that I wish I could share with the moments when my creativity Waynes But needing now just to get down as much as I can and bottle up this feeling or at least put it in art to remember a gosh darn great Saturday like today

I want to find her gray hairs fondly for her to see that there’s not much time and understand why I believe it now is the time to live and we must press on and not relax too much laying in bed all day need to get out and go while we still can for what seems good and satisfying on its face is sticky and alluring slowing you down seeming to go slowWhile really proceeding quickly to old age

I like a little let loose crazy longing for the void only after some time structured set in my ways and nailed down long enough to let sit like clay in the oven or metal in the mold just to be cast back into the fire and barely kept form melting to reshape refusing to stay same sending forth like a god trying to be many and eventually all once obliteratedAnd nothing anymore

swearing to myself to stay sober so as to avoid a sudden left off like last night leaving earth so suddenly that I look down it is only a marble not even the oceans able to be distinguished from the land forgetting everything I knew out here in the black space void truly creative having nothing to draw from like God before originClosing my eyes and making something out of nothing but if I am truly being honest what comes behind the black clothes dies was for another life still like the God that came before ours

Pumped full of fumes filling my Freudian with fear feeling that it is really the end this time having run on planes for so long looking up towards the sky not expecting to step and land on soil no longer falling framed by the cliff face falling is all that is leftAfter plane running and before jagged rock crashing

Knowing when to stop not the morning no that is the time to go after a restful night for the energy rise with the sun at work getting into it and excited waiting to go on even for getting lunch but at some point must slow down must eat rest and relax and get ready for nightfall when the natural energy leaves and must slope down into sleep if the same cycle is to repeat itself tomorrow

if you get to work producing too much at once then Sam gets lost and might have even been better off not produced in the first place the two worlds work together preservation and production producing when energy is available to be spent and even benefits the system as a whole to be spent rather than conserved but sometimes need to conserve like needing to rest at night If only we had something as simple as the sun rising and setting to instruct us went to work and went to rest and all other areas of life

it should be done by now having had ample time to dry the timer telling me this chiming in go and check it says someone may be there waiting with their wet clothes counting on you to come timely like I say what I said a timer if you were going to wait anyway

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speech-to-text after walking home from the coffee shop 1/4/20

I think I have to relax I’ve worked too much then relax and lay in bed all day and realize why I work avoiding lethargy boring listlessness in the idle dark and quiet with only my thoughts that get to go too far on their own and need to get back to work again to think of something other than nothing

I’ve got a good coffee high going so I can’t stop myself from running on the way home just to see new things faster I startle an old man walking with his hands Behind his back slow spooked to see me turning every which way at the street corner bouncing up and down waiting for the light to change

That’s just not true what you repeat to yourself having heard once and at some point believing From the repeating having forgotten the original lie Intel a collision with what’s really reminds you

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tea affecting me

I think its when I start to think that I’m supposed to feel something that I feel at all otherwise just going along thinking mostly and acting instinctually unless I do something like drink a tea that’s supposed to affect me and all of a sudden I’m wondering has it hit me yet looking at my hands more closely and putting my palm over my chest to feel my heart beat asking am I sad happy excited calm when it’s really just an herbal non-caffeinated tea and I’m doing this all on my own

Posted on by Cole

new year’s eve trip 12/31/19

already i feel it
fall away
on the outside;
or, rather,
the need 
to call it
outside, other
than myself
for my skin
has melted away
joining
my true inside
with everything else

k and i
clear away
the teardrop tables
from the rug
in the living room
so we can play
while we take apple
on new year's eve

childish
things matter
less to me
than seemingly 
is so
as the adults say

starting to see
visuals
on my phone screen

shadows 
seem to me
striking

my face
feels like
a picasso

you just
can't capture
the trip;
i wish
we could,
but i can't

i have
to get my art
and hold it
within myself
long enough
until i can
give it to her

I used to think I needed fruit for inspiration and creativity. 
Now, tripping, I realize I have developed a creative system for my sober life. 

I like apple because it's a fair fruit.
On oranges, there's only up, until one big down.
On apples, there are ups and downs throughout. 

I think deeply about the need to spend time with others. 
How many others? Just one? Just your love.
Or more? How many then? Family too? And friends?
How many are needed to make a man happy? 
More than just himself?
As I sit here, having chosen to stay inside and trip,
on New Year's Eve,
instead of going to a concert with my friend Zach.

senses that feel
the foam edge
of pillow
where does
my hand meet
start and stop
stretching feet
yellow streaks
on white paper
the distinct drop
of water
from bath faucet
amid classical
playing
from the speakers
streaking
all colors
clear at once
then jumbled
eyes closed
off into anywhere

the pen rolls off
of the notepad
paper laying
on my lap
startling me
as the pen
rap-rap rolled
across paper
with the clip
rap tapping

it could be
anyone
me and you
you me
playing parts
'parently 
another
stepping in
unbeknownst
to the other

instead of homeless
we could say streetmore

scribbling 
i need some
inspiration 
to get started
so i just
start to scribble
and if i keep scribbling
words will eventually form

all these emotions
experienced on apple
show to me the heights
of what's possible 

you see
some things
that are real
and others
that aren't

convincing yourself
that it's just because
you're tripping

i look at things
a little more closely
when i have the time
noticing finer details
like small imperfections
in white paper
or the perforation
along the edge 

sometimes
my legs shrug
to say 'oh well'
just like
my shoulders do
Posted on by Cole

can’t write sober

the poetry

is there

latent

laying

waiting for me

worrying

as i have

that it had gone

as the lifestyle

i’ve been living

working

focusing

staying sober

had snuffed it out

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undoctored

i feel alright

undoctored

by my own doing

like usual

seeing a symptom

and writing

my own prescription

like coffee

in the morning

or a walk

for my anxiety

having

to self-diagnose

but this morning

the universe

saw my need

and helped me

on its own

Posted on by Cole

last night

i feel like

an impostor

with

the up-for-work crowd

like i slept

last night

though i was

in the warehouse

eyes closed

trying to keep

my balance

in a different

kind of crowd

Posted on by Cole

vertigo

i don’t understand

how space works

right now

falling over

leaning on a wall

feeling for

a center of gravity

forgetting

how to stand

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coffee

i expect the world

to develop faster

for me

having had

my coffee

and expecting time

to move faster

to match my perception

of space

coming sooner

Posted on by Cole

pulsing bathroom floor

the world is shaking moving

making faces at me

in the candle light

the tile floor gyrates

beneath my feet

the little white

hexagon tiles

each bordered

by gray grout

pulse back and forth

confusing my sense

of where my feet bottoms

meet the ground

mocking my

impaired mental state

Posted on by Cole

drunk 5am

a little drunk off of it in the bed at night or morning in between hour at 5am taking this opportunity with the normal connection of my brain to body to reality slightly distorted as drinking will do so laying here writing some and seeing what will come out that wouldn’t normally

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tripping mushrooms in golden gate park on august 10

everyone looks the same like the same person

wanting my trip to be the trip and so not write just to stay here and be with moment …

being in this moment everything melted together so that I can barely feel my feet touch the ground in the sense of my stats as well as my fingertips skipping the phone as I talk to it or less potent or not even there so that whatever drives me my mind on my soul is more the focus just driving and no focus on the appendages that result from the driving just the soul moving through and seeing people inspiring a face to smile but it’s really the Saul doing all of this in the body just listens to the commands of the soul and so now it should be the commands of the soul and more clear the commands of the soul and my clear waiting on my friends thinking it’s funny that I’m talking to my phone off away from them and they’re waiting to walk back to the party so I should really go with them now baby looking so cute tying up her hair and all these people around so many people here in the music in the distance and the fog rolling in over the trees in Golden Gate Park really looking amazing not knowing whether it’s just the nature on its own or whether it’s me tripping do you need to go back now but still looking at my friends laughing and having so much fun just being together making it so happy the baby my new girl is talking to John and Krys my old friends and they getting along so long everything is good right now we need to start writing to be more in the moment and not really being the crux of this having to stop writing or having to stop being I mean not being able to be in the moment while riding and having to step away in order to talk to myself so people don’t look at me weird

Picked a good part of the forest wondering what thoughts I have a worth writing and what sites should be wet just pass so meeting in the middle by writing everything later but having this theory that it’s all good

Feeling good and great directions like for the trip now fully in it past the turbulence of the come up so just soaring and even taking more needing really just focus and be at it does pass just talking because I’m trying to write

Realizing so much more and more that it’s the self-consciousness that affects the art even just now talking to John realize the conversation we were having his art it self and so not necessarily the consciousness of the self the gist of art be created a fax with whatever not oh my god this

feeling the fear of experiencing it while not writing and then it’s gone and I wasn’t recording and I can’t get back that exact feeling that led to what could’ve been written and even now even now my phone is having difficulty recording what I’m saying with all the people on their voices around so the moment is harder and harder to capture which makes me wonder about moments that must be captured presently yet or out of reach of art forms that can’t be capturing in that moment feeling the same fear of forgetting or missing out in general but specifically applied to the art that would’ve been created in that moment and really wanting to survive and get down to it to have life be created and recorded and not lost or forgotten being the driving force of life and the driving force of art in the drive

So overwhelmed with it all feeling what is all here always but unable to live like this with so much overwhelming just becoming exhausted all the sensory inputs and empathy for others and looking at someone in the face and not knowing them but feel exact with the feeling

The same feeling I feel for something written down and then lost as I feel for life lost in life really just being time but time needing something to pass in order to be itself so life big time and space

I forget who is who falling behind in the crowd with my group it’s in the back of one head and it being a difference the back of another the trip so that everyone is the same

Looking at people and being there and not wanting to interrupt that with being myself

So much going on if I’m to be the one I’ve learned you can’t write it all at once you just can’t write it all at once it takes time life has to play out overtime even if you feel it all at once you can’t write it all once at least not with words you by feeling that one moment so much do you want to explode in that moment obliterates with Human and you but you just can’t write it on the moment

And being with the moment thinking that I want to be here but what about myself I came before that I want to keep being before or not thanks so much and see you baby far away laughing and really realizing now that I stepped out of the moment and seeing all these people that know that I’m tripping look like the same people I see your face and looks like a face from my past but really all the faces are the same and I feel more connected and more caring and more easily able to find excuses for the fault of others just like I find excuses for my own faults

Posted on by Cole

sleep drug

like sleep

is the drug

that does it

between dreams

needing

to forget

one world

to see others

Posted on by Cole

blurred colors

blurred colors come into vision

like the sliver on rings on fingers

and the green on leaves on trees

spinning around in the park

and the peach of fingers typing

on phone screens and blurry streaks

all of it like paint strokes with colors

that run and melt together

Posted on by Cole

boat party

i close my eyes off into musical light ecstasy dancing to the rhythm of abstract shapes moving colorful behind my eyelids before opening my eyes to meet a harsh defined reality where colors are bordered in definite shapes and move again according to math instead of according to the feeling of dance

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drunk in line

drunk a little

left in line

waiting for

i’m not sure

what just

comfortable

to stand here

otherwise

inappropriately

drunk, but

here in line

perfectly

in place

Posted on by Cole

get lifted

i get lifted

off into where

there is no

balance sheet

or rulebook

to tell me “no”

or slap my hand

which i need

sometimes

to stay grounded

Posted on by Cole

july 4th

a purse full of mushrooms and cocaine from pen caps sitting near on open window in the attic of the officer’s quarters in the presidio. waiting for fireworks that we might not be able to see because of the fog. chase said last year the fireworks were just red and blue clouds through the fog and even the booms were softened. brick chimney and wooden rafters in the attic all of us sitting on the floor and hand me down furniture. people talking as loud as the music is my favorite part of a party when everyone has had enough to drink to no longer be strangers even if they only met an hour ago. all gathered by the open window in the whole wide house that has 10 bedrooms and four floors but we’ve all gathered here naturally in the uppermost corner of the house after being on the porch and in the front yard and all spread out throughout the house before. baby and i in the love. my legs rested up on the couch and her legs over mine. keeping cool from the breeze coming in through the open window

a very foggy spooky night where car lights show suddenly crept through unseen yellow light tunnel haze taken the highway to divisadero with baby’s hand in mine resting on the leather backseat radio plays softly and driver politely offers water in a river of straightaway stop and go lights and cars like ours following the rules waiting patiently having coming down from the presidio now so you can see farther than 10 feet ahead lights are really all that shows the eyes other than dark and in that way the fog is more like the dark hiding parts of the city view on the car ride home

Dark to bright light eyes adjusted so some shapes could be seen at the outer edges before but now everything information overload color all at once just long enough to get paste on the toothbrush and then light switch back off but still not quick enough to avoid peoples contracting and now in the dark even the outer edges disappear so the dark is really complete and I have to wait a moment beforeI can see the edges again and find the faucet (edited) handle to wet (edited) the toothpaste

Posted on by Cole

too high

i follow my train of thought

so aggressively that i forgot

i have a body; i come out of it

like a dream and say something

that doesn’t make sense

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smoking in bed

baby blowing smoke into my lungs so music sounds better laughing laying on top of a made bed in the afternoon when we should really get out but perfectly content here with outside coming into us from sunlight pouring in through tall windows framed by drapes

Posted on by Cole

extra-terrestrial

tabbed out taken a trip from terrestrial to extra in a flash of color changing shapes known to new ways of seeing things melted into each other so a painting palette where blotches mix makes a world more than usual

Posted on by Cole

quarter tab swim

on a quarter tab

laying on the beach

the ocean called me

taking off my jeans,

flannel, shirt, socks,

and shoes

there were other people

on the beach;

lots of people actually.

it was a nice day.

i took off my clothes

and walked toward the water.

tripping, not conscious

of other people

watching me.

in the water, freezing,

didn’t bother me.

out to waist high

a wave came

i dove in and

under the water

everything ceased to exist. the ego already disassociates on acid. the body can still remain lightly with a subdued awareness of the senses. under freezing water, however, that awareness is obliterated.

there is only the freezing all over. and the roar of water forever. waves crashing above like the world is falling apart.

forgetting to breathe because the art of being underwater takes precedence for my attention. even when my lungs shout, return to the surface, i cannot hear them.

the art of nature at large overwhelming my individual need to survive. it making no difference whether my body, a small part of all this, will rise to the surface and swim back to the beach, or drown here and sink and become one with the ocean that i am part of in one way alive or dead in another.

Posted on by Cole

delete

HOT AIR BALLOON

It’s only sometimes when I’m like a kid again, I get so silly high that I forget about everything and blow so much hot air into my own balloon, until there’s no breath left in my lungs, and I start to fall—

like I imagine it is to jump out of a plane that’s very high up. Terror in the beginning, yes. But then boredom. And after boredom, curiosity for the clouds and the air around you, for what you can see and what it is like to fall now that the fear is commonplace.

Having gotten used to the fear of falling, the trauma upon impacting earth is surprising, and brings with it a new pain upon the hard crash landing.

My impact drives me so deep that at first I know it is temporary but at some point so far beneath, I start to wonder whether I’ll ever rise again. So much time in the dark, and deeper, darker all the while,

I start to think I’ll never summit, I start to think that I’ll never return, I start to think I’ll never be the same—I can’t really help it, thinking like this. But boy, when I’m high up there, lighter and higher all the while, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Posted on by Cole

talking to myself about sobriety using speech-to text at like 4:37am according to my iMessage

in such sobriety everything is clear as it should be similar evening to the drug that distorts reality such that with the drug around you need edges but I’ve seen show shark sobriety sharpens the edges 13 so round allowing me to see wrinkles the hardwood floor in the end it screws noticing things I wouldn’t have before stopping on my walk home to start something I walked by $100 but not noticed is beautiful being myself as a human should be but losing touch with something more that being human prevents us from accessingAt least not consistently only allowing to see as recluses like a drug guy but in the case you’re going to give that up so Briody allows your godly version of being human.

Posted on by Cole

another delete from the book

I wish we could
have come and gone
without the kite strings
higher with the wind

and higher until there
wasn’t any turning back
and we were closer to

another planet than we
were to the earth that
we left from and so

began a weird alien life
where, as we got farther
away from ten fingers
and oxygen, we got closer
to another life we didn’t

recognize, but this was
the risk we ran when
we cut our kite strings
and we knew that before

so we swallowed our
situation and put on
alien suits to play along.
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Thinking of what will be

Experiencing what is, thinking of what will be, wondering how what is will affect what will be, letting your thoughts about what will be define your experience of what is, letting your feelings about what you are experiencing be good only in the case that they are good for what will be, only allowing yourself to be a certain way, which is to say only allowing what there is to be a certain way, as you experience what is, and making these requirements for yourself based on what you want yourself to be at some point in the future, which is to say making requirements for what will be in the future—in other words, trying to control the future. All the time doing this in the present, to manipulate what will be in the future, instead of just allowing the present to be itself, and thus looking deeper into the experience of the present with your full self that also exists in that present, letting water run together with water, instead of always focusing the attention of your present self on thoughts of the future, letting oil try but fail to run together with water. Future thoughts are merely experiences of a reality that has yet to pass and thus are less clear and beautiful than the thoughts of a present reality that exists right in front of your nose and overwhelms your appetite for attention over and over again if you really look deep enough and never run out of things to see.

Like just now, I am high, unable to function too well in terms of what my experience will demand of me in the future, especially when I have to return to work, but I don’t have to work for four days, and all that my present experience demands of me is that I relax, and so I ask myself, why let thoughts of the future change my experience of the present? Especially when my current state of being high is actually better suited for this present reality and will certainly change, many times perhaps, before the future experience of going back to work according to which I am now judging my present self and for which I now prematurely try to change my present self, and as a result would make my present self more ill-suited for the present experience in favor of being better-suited for a future experience. Why does that make sense? It does not, I don’t think.

Or, with my writing, I paused because I was going to write something but forgot, so I stopped writing, and started thinking of what I had forgotten, trying to remember, thinking of what the writing would be if I could only remember what I had forgotten, thinking of the future of the writing and ignoring what I was thinking in the present, restricting my experience of my present thought process so that I could pull a thought forward from the past in the interest of a future version of the piece that I had conceived of only in my mind.

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sense and nonsense

like things make sense that don’t normally when you are under the influence of drugs, but not when you’re sober; or when you’re in love, but not when you’re out of it; or in the early morning, but not at night—though the sun can be as overwhelming and drunk as it can be Apollonian and precise—there is some Dionysus in the sun, when it is its most powerful.

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appeal of drunkenness

sitting on my bed in my apartment in San Francisco at 4:40pm on Thanksgiving day, I understand the appeal of drunkenness specifically for the effect of not being yourself for a while.

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look out more

can i resist doing drugs when i’m bored? i test myself. my poetry continues to be egotistical. look out more, i tell myself. forget about yourself.

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Dishwasher music

Yesterday I took an eighth of a tab. I was lying on my bed with my eyes closed and my hands folded across my chest. I had turned on the speakers before I laid down and was listening to some classical music, Strauss, I think. It was so beautiful and I was seeing great visuals with my eyes closed and all together coming into the peak of the trip, I thought. For some reason, I don’t remember why, I opened my eyes and got up.

When I walked over to the stereo system, it wasn’t on. My first thought was, what the heck? I thought I turned this on. And my second thought was, well that’s odd, what symphony have I been listening to this whole time then? That I’ve been enjoying so much. And I realized, it was my dishwasher! The only other noise happening in my apartment. I either had forgotten to turn on the stereo or it had shut off on its own at some point and I was laying on my bed and hearing such a beautiful sound coming from the mechanics and the splashing of water and dishes.

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Bomb off

Go ahead and bomb off you’re gonna be alright, everything is safe and okay here, you needn’t worry, what you need you have: there is food in the fridge and tea in your cup, you have a safe bed right there and the door is locked and nobody’s around.

Go ahead and bomb off, just don’t think of anything outside this room and if you start then remember to breathe, you’ll be alright, you great big baby you’ll be fine

Go ahead and bomb off, cover up the clocks and don’t think about time and just act thankful as hell and hang out in the apartment like your own world apart from everything else.

Go ahead and bomb off, today is your day, bomb off, it’s alright, read this if you get worried, everything is okay, breathe if you start to think, don’t think about your identity or your conception of yourself; just think of what your senses are taking in

Go ahead and bomb off you’ll be alright, when you come back you’ll still be yourself and pick up right where you left off and might not even remember but the thing is you’ll remember it now and it’ll be you for as long as it lasts.

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Alien high

I wish we could have come and gone with the wind without the kite strings higher and higher until there wasn’t any turning back and we were lower to another planet than we were high from earth and so began a weird alien life where as we got farther away from five fingers and oxygen we got closer to another life we didn’t recognize but this was the risk we ran when we cut our kite strings so we swallowed our situation and put on our aliens suits to play along.

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Fire drugs

There are some psychosomatic effects whereby even the bad drugs end up being good, when I need a boost just to get me over the edge and the short-term negative effects are outweighed by the long-term momentum, like a match to start a fire, even though the small stick of the match will be used and spent up and even broken, a sacrifice is made for the flame of a log fire that spreads and spreads, even into a whole forest if it really wanted to.

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Bus trip

Wow, so much on the bus, trying to think of words for this but I don’t think there are any. Even my fingers streak across the screen. So many thoughts that don’t have words to express them. I’m doing my best just to write this and saying to myself, “Okay, okay, you got this.” I want to try writing poetry.

Glass out the window. Cold flakes yet to hail. I really think I’m too lost for this. It’s all garble. Nothing that makes sense comes out. All I can keep saying is ‘oh god, oh god’ and marvel at how my fingers feel.

My mind isn’t putting together what is spatially available to my body. I thought in my head that there was fruit in the fridge at home. I reached out in the present world where I’m just sitting in a bus and I tried to take the fruit out of my fridge. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me that I could reach out and grab something that wasn’t there. Everyone on this bus is thinking the same thing. It’s like we all share the same mind.

I want to take mental snapshots, to remember this somehow. The height of my life. I think the same thing every time. But eventually I forget and go back to living normally.

I feel the soreness in my brain like a muscle tired after a workout.

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Method writing

I bend myself like a method actor to get into a certain style of writing. Sexed and drugged to write poetry with an honestly dumbed-down vocabulary and more emotion. Alone for weeks with coffee and exercise to write academically. Holding my breath and watching characters out the window to write a novel.

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Sexed and drugged

I come back to this sober world where I care for my physical body, my survival, and my future. Back from a whole month or more so sexed and drugged that I forgot who I was and just became a part of and in love with everything. I didn’t even realize I’d misplaced so much of my ego.

My meditation, too, served to lift me up and out of myself so that what I was concerned with most was everyone else and everything around me.

Now back here, more in my body, my thoughts are more often of looking better and maximizing returns on my investments, rather than poetry and dreams that came to me constantly while I was open to everything.

I was looking up into the open sky and overwhelmed by it so probably processing the same amount as I am now looking very far into a deep, narrow hole. They are either both lenses to the same thing or they are opposites.

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Four of us feeling good

Through a tunnel passing through the low yellow lights crossing the bridge smoking in the car speakers drumming early in the afternoon four of us talking and feeling good.

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Left coast

We should take some acid and go to the Presidio and roll around. I have no science to corroborate this, but I’m pretty sure I can do drugs without hurting my body.

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Meditation saved my life

Sometimes I get all caught up and drugged out and so deep into my art that I can’t see back out. I start to break all my good habits and hurtle headlong into the furnace. This is where meditation has saved my life. I stop and remember to breathe and return to my true nature and everything is alright. I breathe in everything and let out everything and remind myself that I’m not supposed to hold any of it. I’m just a part of the whole flow. All that matters is I do my best and respect and love others.

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Creative flood

After I finish a creative flood and get a lot down on paper, I like get drunk to kill all my old thoughts and brain cells and start rebuilding new ones. Probably not healthy but definitely helpful for my art—this is a larger them I’ve noticed: art is often not healthy.

It includes everything over and beyond what is allowed by our survival, everything over and beyond our physical bodies in space and time, on the far side past the veil of death.

 

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Too high

I dose myself up too high so that I have to try my best to stretch out my shirt and make a parachute on the way back down.

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Where the high falls

You release into Dionysian ecstasy too early, even though there are diminishing returns to appreciating the increase in ecstasy at those high levels. You push to go higher but you’re only moving horizontally, not really enjoying it as much anymore but still just holding onto the plateau for fear of falling while your wings are burning the whole time.

Better to keep the ecstasy channeled in Apollonian and let it grow in tiers. This way the ecstasy fills each tier and is “saved” in some sense and the drug high can grow and grow, slowly but consistently, upward.

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Will meeting reality

I keep finishing things and then wondering, what the heck do I do now? I think it’s because I’m tripping. All my ego is stripped away so I’m just a Will meeting reality so I constantly want to be doing something.

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The hours before

Remember when it was quiet. When you came over and I was cooking. You were sitting on the couch. I poured you a drink. It was simple and slow. I asked you about your day and you made a joke.

That hour or so, maybe less than that, when it was just you and me. It fills up with anticipation for the night. It fills up with anxiety about the silence. It fills up with things other than peace if you let it.

But now that we’re in bed in the morning, and we try to remember the night, it’s easy to overlook the subtle acceleration. When A came over and started to play his music and the volume got a little louder. Then K came over and we danced and moved a little faster. And then E and J came over and by then the night was really a big boulder tumbling down the hill.

To really savor it, I don’t know if it’s possible without slowing down. But at least to remember how it started so slow, makes the fast rush of the out of control night just that much sweeter.

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Poetry on drugs

It’s much easier to get excited about poetry on the drug high. Working on the novel requires more precision like an exact science.

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Sober occasionally

When you’re doing drugs, you have to intersperse highs with sobriety. If there was no reality, you could stay high all the time. But there is a reality, to which our bodies and minds are subjected. In order to stay healthy, we need occasional sobriety to check in and make sure everything with ourselves is still functioning properly, like a spacecraft coming back home from outer space to refuel and perform maintenance.

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Other-worldly

While I’m tripping, I want to write. I want to take advantage of the good feelings and creativity. But I realize writing is a worldly thing. Words are worldly. Characters and plots are worldly. Tripping is other-worldly. All you can do is be in the present and enjoy it.

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Melting trip

My trip was starting to go bad and everything was melting. That was when you put your head on my shoulder and I thought it was melting. I reached back to grab it and yelled, “Dali was right!”

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Orange drugs

With the same experience over and over we become entrenched in the same pathways. Drugs open new mental pathways and unblock old ones. Last night I smoked and this morning as I’m peeling an orange I pay attention to the small bursts of citrus that erupt from each slice as I pull the orange apart. I can see the small droplets from a fly’s-eye-view in micro-detail. I can smell the citrus so crisp and clear. Such a pleasant small experience that I think I would have missed if I had not smoked last night and reset the way I look at things.

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Dynamic body and mind

I am 23 and just now realizing how dynamic my body is. I can completely destroy it and return to health in just a few days of good habits. Or I can build it up and make it strong and destroy it in a short time. Same with my mind. I can be so stupid and forgetful in a moment and then so brilliant and creative in the next. The effects of drugs have influenced these thoughts I think.

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