The Key to Perception

 

With a great lack of perception

Do I decide to write to you.

At this moment.

I cannot see, feel

Or perceive.

I know not if my pricked finger

Leaves a hieroglyphic note

On these battered bare walls.

Or if it merely leaves an echo,

Along the dirty prison halls.  

All I know,

Is that which I think;

This story,

This essay of my digression,

Will be a moment of perfection.

A moment of grand proportion.

Do not even think of placing this narrative down,

But also be wary,

For cynical minds do digress upon the insane.

This story, which will first be found

On the cold stone of my cell,

Will be near a century old when uncovered.

For that is my sentence,

A century, an eternity, an infinity.

 

Ten years ago,

I fell subject to the place most men call insanity.

This foolishness,

This passing of the brink,

Has merely given life more distance and agitation.

And within this distance
I have found a lack of green grass over the bony hills.

Without desire of giving any true scornful tone,

Here follows the account of I,

Darron Lithiliote…

 

Childhood, a blur.

Nonsensical smears of games

And foolish acts of rebellion.

Happiness consisted of sneaking spirits,

And cunning plans of annihilating

Anything small on legs.

Youth was full of late night adventures

To the local bar. Trips of illusive peace,

Coming sporadically onto naked chests,

Gun shot gun shot,

Hold out your tongue for those purple pills…

Colours and colours of feeling and remoteness.

During this youth,

I took a long journey

To the local emergency repair shop,

And in that hospital,

Did I grow…

Substantially unstable.

 

Late one night,

In my taxing youth,

I had been cajoling women with one of my buddies.

We threw off lacy garments,

Shot down measures of whiskey,

But grew bored quickly,

And wandered into the dark fields behind the bar.

Stood along a shaky bridge,

Rotted green with moss,

The bridge depressing at every footstep,

Over a snaking ravine,

That wound and roved our through icy hills.

He was holding a bottle of gin,

I, a bottle of absinthe

That sloshed green with sticky worms.

And we ran, raging back and forth,

Hoping the viaduct would collapse beneath us.

Hoping we would be granted some new,

Unapproved of and supernatural adventure.

Alas, the bridge remained whole,

And I submerged in the icy river.

Unbroken and unharmed I floated,

Disappointed.

It wasn’t until the roar of a waterfall reached my ears, that I grew eager.

I dipped my head back

Into the freezing water,

My nose, eyes, ears

Suddenly on fire with chill.

I clenched my fist around my un-battered bottle,

Held it to my lips,

And inhaled it like smoke.

My floating body hit a sharp edge

Just before the falls,

And I remember nothing more of the calamity.

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