Lysergic acid diethelylamide
When taken in sufficient dose
Loosens the bonds that hold things in place
Beginning with the things barely there
Held together with hope, will, practice, anxiety and fear
Like narratives, life plans, good and bad, next week’s geography exam
The future and the past
Then the clouds, rolling in from the horizon
Blowing in, picking up speed until the house starts to come apart
The floor can’t stand still anymore
Pieces move in seasick asymmetric undulations
The walls become islands of texture
The picture fragments into colors, shapes
Each field, each tree sets out on its own
Moving to a rhythm only the two of you can hear
Shared secrets, whispered, hover, pop in the air
Language unravels paragraph by sentence
Concepts freed from meaning die and are reborn in strange mutations
Until you find yourself speaking wordless language
Struggling to communicate unnamable dreamtime equations
That sometimes, somehow they understand
More and more
Sweating in the heat of the molten lava as it slowly, slowly cools
And the newborn joy of sharing
As the souvenirs you’re holding slow their shifting
And stop slipping through your fingers
While now turns into minutes and hours pass
And no one can say when
The world reformed again

…Only my world had never fully formed to begin with
Growing up, the crust never hardened into something all that solid
Standing in the field watching the earth breath
In the distance there are green waves crashing
As the soccer cleats on my pre-pubescent feet churn no dirt
“Littenberg!!!”
The soccer ball hits the side of my head and careens out of bounds
Followed by the obscenely loud…
Knock on the bathroom door
“you still breathing in there, kiddo~?”
Yeah, mom, I’m still breathing in here
Breathing to the rhythm of the undulating wood
Grain dancing songs that speak of home
I could almost reach it
My real home
My real family still sets a place at the table
In a room that smells like the worlds in the paperback books
When I hold them real close to my face
So they can block out the sounds
I’m being whispered about on the other side of the wall

So you see the first time I dropped acid it wasn’t a trip into outer space
But a return to a neighboring state
A place I could see from my room if I squinted just so.
Only I came back a tourist
I couldn’t speak the language
And then it was over
So each time I returned I traveled a little deeper and stayed a little longer
Hoping that I’d either gain asylum of burn out my difference
One way or another I’d be home.

Well, I never did make it home
But not for lack of trying.
And I’m still in here, breathing.
Along the way I sought out or stumbled upon–
Half-found, half-built in wishes and clay
–A new family
Raised up from the ground
And it’s beautiful, but it’s not perfect
And sometimes out of the corner of my eye
I’ll see it
A wavering place
And I want to return.