I’ve never seen what my brain looked like on crack

I can only guess what it looks like on poetry.

If crocodiles mated with white cockatoos

and then vomited their offspring

in a fresh glaze of sulfuric slime

that writhed on the floor

gasping for air as a means of grappling

with its newfound reality here on Earth—

That’s how I imagine my brain on poetry.

A distorted mass of neurons,

all reactions,

that tries to cope with

the inevitable realities that the written word

prescribes—

even when the word lies.

For what is written as falsehood

may shed some light

on what is known as fact

and escaping reality

may be just as trying

as facing it.

My precious little bundle of wriggling neurons

is now thoughtless—

hopeless, in fact.

So dear friends,

it looks like I have a crack problem.