apostasynthesis

smoking medical pot
to relieve the sharp pain
that shoots
from my ankles
as I hobble about the house
serving T.V. dinners
to my imagined alter-ego,
watching Pavlov's dogs
chase Schrodinger's cat
down memory lane
past poor decisions
and psych unit phone rooms,
past tough Thai palms trees,
and forgotten university lovers
their bared bodies
still lit by the discovery
of Hemingway, Keats, and
the watery moons of Jupiter,
past the high school book room
where mocha in hand
I hid from the combative clatter
of fellow youths
in the hallway...
and finally slipping away
out of consciousness
into forms and dreams
I won't remember
come morning
renewed but doomed
to repeat the cycle

Never having had the luxury
of believing in anything
too firmly,
these years of up and down
but always eventually down
have animalized
my over-read philosophy:
competing understandings
growling at one another
through the jagged yellow teeth
of chronic fear

Again and again,
great armies of neurons
(theories, habits, and opinions)
smashed apart by lurching explosions
disowning my decisions
swirling and dancing
in the absence of gravitas...
searching for answers
re-coalescing into hopes
and will
to continue the struggle...
to find small joys
like cactus-water in the desert
to take warmth
from a mechanical sun