Poetry | Mental Health | Psychedelics

Acid Rush

Sometimes

I sit beside the silkworm

as he draws the hookah near.

The gentle plume soaks the circuits.

Our lips kiss the metal tip.

We suck the silky snake of smoke;

Inhale.

When we share the purple blotter

dendrites spark

like rows of flashing teeth

chewing at my synapses.

Snapping senses crack my fingertips.

The hair on my arms quivers to attention

like caterpillar fuzz, brown and orange

An acid rush

I lift my hands and spread their webs.

Quick blood flows in pulsing cables;

coated wires, tuned to my thumping heart.

Liquid jumps and crawls in whites and reds.

My skin shifts and slips up my arm

to encase the jellied meat.

I blink

And with a jerk,

I pull my eyes away

Move my arms onto the mouldy bark.

I feel it lift to greet my grasping hands.

It pulls me to the pulsing veins

of ovate sky and sun and forest soil.

I move through timbered roots,

my hands alive.

As the sun greets birdsong

I discover I’ve returned.