DRUG POEM (2011)

Corrie was hanging out with some punks/workmates at a fire behind the Lodge. She called Ted for a ride home but explained that she didn't know where she was or how to get out. Since Ted and I had been there and Ted had flashlights we set off for the hills. We found Corrie easily despite the swamp but soon realized his cigarettes had fallen from his shirt pocket as had my sunglasses from the same pocket on my own shirt. It was midnight and we thought we were fucked but went looking. It took time to find our past path but both the cigarettes and sunglasses were lying next to each other on the ground. We jumped up and down with our arms raised, screaming with joy. Corrie just looked at us.

Before that, we met up with Matt for BBQ. (The food was unremarkable and went sour over night in both the to-go container and my stomach.) Matt had finished a batch of DMT and took me and Ted to the Isle for a test. Ted had never smoked DMT so he went first: a tunnel with the unmoving head of an animated statue at the end. Matt followed: a scary trip of deformed people in Pepsi t-shirts. He opened his eyes early & walked towards us while experiencing intense hallucinations of bark spinning on tree branches. He said the trip was lasting hours.

My trip: I sat on the ground with my back to a tree and began taking hits. I stared at the trees ahead until they began to move & thought, "I'm ready, here we go..." and put the pipe down. I immediately felt at peace, falling into shifting patterns and gradients of yellow and red. I was hopeful, looking for the people because I hadn't seen them in some time. They were angry at me for smoking DMT after an argument with my girlfriend, Suicide playing full blast.

I was on the inside of a chamber and realized the people were there. They were hiding in the light or made up of it but casually interacting: silhouetted curvy women like those on a truck's mudflap lying on their side cascading into the periphery. In reality, I began to fall over and jumped when my limp body finally gave way. My eyes opened briefly and saw a reminder that I was there: one of my legs. Closing my eyes again, the brief image of the woods and my leg remained but solarized, then stretched and burned apart like film in the gate of a projector.

We drove to the tip of the Isle and sat on the rocks where we each took another trip. This time I was underwater. The visuals were not unlike the reflection of water on the ceiling of a cave. I was drifting and it felt as though I could fall asleep right there. Matt experienced something similar but Ted was back inside the tunnel. Later, I took a third trip and was confronted with a vision of Ted sitting on the rocks. The detail was magnificent: every freckle popping off his face about one foot into the air. He was naked and unmoving, the color of the Statue of Liberty. A three foot crack erupted in him, stretching from face to pubis, and foamy dark green blood gushed from the opening.

Afterward, we went to the Igloo and got peanut butter milkshakes.