In every good tragedy there’s a smile.
Whether it’s
The leer of a dead king,
The cloudy peace of rest
Or the sinister smirk of a manipulating shrew,
Self-assured and surprised at success,
But indifferent.
I have them all beat.

My smile is sad.
Did You Know?
The very first time I saw a fan
Turn into a helicopter
And fly away
I thought it was real.
I have a bad memory.

It was a friend of mine
Who reminded me:
“It’s acid, dumba**.  LSD.
It makes you see things.”
We had the windows covered,
Idiots.  We thought darkness might
Be too dangerous. 
Looking back, our logic was flawed.

So leaning by the French doors
Absent of the California sunshine
They halftime radiated
Heart pounding, mouth dry,
Held by the brain stem,
By the hallucinogenic,
Euphoric,
Colorfulness.
I thought to myself:
“So far so good.”
That’s inaccurate.  I didn’t think, I saw.

Flash forward to now,
And back again,
I think I’ve become unstuck in time, you see,
Like Billy Pilgrim
But with slightly differing mechanics.
It’s like bookmarking a page, you see.

They gave me an illustration
A colorful little sketch
With quite a lot of pink.
They asked me to title it.
I called it: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
That’s another name for acid, you know.
They didn’t--I think.

They asked me if I’d ever had a nightmare,
I said no, but thanks for your concern.
(This was after the detox, of course.)
They said they needed to be a little bit more specific.
They asked me if I’d ever had a nightmare on acid.
I replied: “When people want to exaggerate something
They’ll often say it’s as if this thing was on drugs.
Like, oh, I don’t know… something.  Something on steroids.”
They finished the interview there.
I need to stop saying they.

I had a flashback once
I guess you could call it two in one
Because of all the damn trips I could have gone back to
Not that one.
I don’t care for that one.

I think I wanted to be a poet once.
Or will want to be a poet.
Or wanted to be a poet and stopped.
I’m nine years old in 199X.
I should hop over there sometime.

It was my parents who betrayed me
I honestly don’t blame them
They’re lovely people
And I bear them no ill will.
I think I did, once.

I think
A little exposition
Might be in order
I started in high school,
Was shipped off after college,
And it’s all relative,
So I won’t even bother.
Suffice it to say that no one noticed,
Until I let them--I hope.

Everything I now realize
Has been pink
Up to this point
The drawing, and the pill-capsule
The powder, the drawing.
I need something else.
There was a diagram.
It showed the effects of acid on a young,
Brown-haired, dull-looking Caucasian man.
I said something silly at the time.

I don’t know who I used to be very well.
There’s little more heartbreaking than
Someone, who at one time seemed so
Interesting, to be reduced to walking
Mediocrity.  At least, that’s what I’ve heard.
I hear people smiling, sadly,
(No wait, that’s not the right verb),
(But it is)
(It can’t be)
(When was the last time you ever asserted to know something)

“That man has a lot of silly tattoos.”
That’s what I said.