The Psychedelics of Youth

by Mikey Waller

You wake up, mouth pried open by desiccant, 

limbs stinging in sour vinegar

leftover from REM sleep

You remember a dream about drowning in gasoline,

or getting split into fractions by a tornado

or dying in general

Either way, you’re washing your face in front of a mirror,

but it’s so dark the water looks like oil,

or whatever matter midnight is made of

It’s 3:37 a.m. and you're analyzing the white of your eyes,

convincing yourself the person in the mirror is you,

and the lights being on or off—

Well, it matters less than before because 

your body is weighted and boiling from the inside out,

just like those daycare field trips

when the walk to get ice cream

didn’t even make it taste better

Or three years ago when your oldest friends forced you to finish a shot of tequila

to play sober for the stretch of the night,

just like adults do

But then you’re back to floating away from the eggshell lights of the bathroom

and there’s a strange X drawn in sharpie by the fire alarm,

high up enough to blur your vision

But there’s something that keeps flashing in the corner of your eye,

you turn but you never quite catch it

maybe it’s summer again,

the fireworks you missed

as you slept in the back seat

Yet, you’re in the dark, twisted in sheets again and the oiled sky is gushing,

all you see this time are the whites of your eyes—

void, biting, and you’re scared of yourself,

how your father used to

with oversized, half-dead bugs or

the frogs in the basement and

promises of thunderclouds

Without warning, you wake up, almost cracking your head on the popcorn ceiling,

and you can no longer trust yourself to remember the heat waves,

sober nights,

retching

when the lights fade out

You will give in to the psychedelics of youth,

                                 comedown drenched in nostalgia and maudlin

                                                                                   and embalm the memories once more

But something drags you by the lungs, back to the night in the SUV—

this is when you thought you’d die buckled in the backseat trying not to scream as the sky bruised every piece of its flesh and the wind folded you over again and again like risen dough until there were enough layers of yourself to hear your heartbeat in your eye sockets, neck, chest, wrists, stomach, thighs, ankles—

Are you sure the past is immaculate?

You’ll beg to know what was in the corner of your vision,

flashing and taunting like festivals,

but it couldn't matter then either,

asleep in the backseat waiting

for someone to carry you inside.