My dance is over, I’m circling on the inside. My mind has waves, turns when I see Halley. She’s as real to me as you are to yourself. No more judgment, no more trying to figure it all out.

Randy noises, sudden shocks, a nurse in blue scrubs ready to scrub me out of existence. His mind is made of contrary objectives. “We can work together,” he says. Neither of us believe that, though. I just want a kiss, but not from him; from Halley, however far from me she is now, wherever she streaks tonight. Do they think I want to be here, that this is all I am, all I can do? Am I really a danger to myself and others? Who made that judgment? They could have told me before jackbooting me into this ward.

…

I was at an event in which I encountered a wall of jars containing tiny universes. Dropping one would have been an act of divinity.

…

Mounting a singular strand of sand, Halley emerges into a hazy reality. She is delving deep into obsession to repair my fear. Her comprehension of my paralysis is miles away, tantalizing recoiling shooting. My pain elongates her pursuit of twisting, sucking cheeks.

Jut the chest out further with miniscule immense effort. I’m sweating profusely, blinking rolls of breathing weakening temporary false movements. Her gyrating desperation looks grotesque and surreal. Prop my hips into my torso by mashing them together, the right type of stuff; knock out the staff, steal a tray, make it to the door, phase through, and catch a comet with Halley.

She’s spewing immensely and wincing blurbs of blood; spill … crazy … angst swells contort her body into a seizure. Eyebrow forehead furrows ceaselessly; Halley writhes in perpetual motion with a widening tongue slithering out of her gaping mouth; I have to go because of the corkscrew frenzy.

…

Eye lasers were coming at me as I hopped. My skull, my brain: fizzle. An aggressive violent burst glass front door shattered; I was bleeding from the face and arms. A screeching harpy attacked while employees and customers in alternative routes of escape shocked the beast’s raging. Fearful scampering from the apewoman; my love, Halley, shelved cereal while winging soup cans at the manager. Her chest heaved over his head when he leapt over the counter, calling 911. I struck back, jumped the counter, knocked over the cigarette rack, and said, “Choke blood.”

I felt the muscle of my neck connecting to my lungs with the full weight of his force lunging in disoriented groggy sprawls, his forearms forcing my chin into a punctured lung. His throat reached my chest, and I trapped his nauseating gurgling noises into the depression of my breathing. I was turning blue; with decreased oxygen flow, the situation was worsening to a pathetic terror as he seesawed himself into a struggle with panicked gravity. It was dizzying lying still and claustrophobic moving around.

Halley and I got out, but then we were coping with panic freak outs, chaos scrambling into shrieking flailings of oncoming traffic. “Get out of the way!” I spread out my arms and dared a semi to run me over. I was God and he would see Me. He already knew it in his heart, he just refused to believe. When he swerved into the other lane, his horn blaring, I turned to force all the air out of my lungs into his mind. His anger turned to fright, and I laughed as he passed.

…

Busking on the right night means loud music, lively conversation, haughty laughter, ample spray paint. People payin’. I painted dark purple and burnt umber, an abstract that suggested it was best to keep walking. I switched to brush and canvas for a friend to create the right wedding present. Then I unlocked my bike and rode it through the breakthrough. I wrote about being poor on a fixed income with housing limitations, being catatonic in a state mental health facility, and a travel book on how to live well abroad.

The latter I named “Adventures in Subtlety.” The book was to be an appetizer to attract amenable tourists to help them transform into travelers. I casually mentioned the title to two Australians who worked in tech and design. Big mistake. The guy, testosterone turned up to 11, said, “No, no, it has to be one word, man, two syllables at most. Apple, Google, Twitter.” The woman chimed, “Best to make it a word that doesn’t mean anything in any language, like Cisco.” They cycled through more names, but I wasn’t interested in starting a search engine or a social media company.

Until we’re grunting our conversations, I want access to a multitude of syllables. I wanted to attract an audience that didn’t give a shit about one-word two-syllable names of tech companies. I wanted people who wanted to leave that world behind to escape trends and discover what was not shaped by algorithms. To these tech hipsters, though, I explained no more. They were enmeshed in hyper-marketing as a social pastime. They were kind enough to remind me why I avoid expat bars. I should have known. Its name was Lime, yet an orange color scheme assaulted me. Irony? I needed something more.

…

Half the others were picking up the pieces while grinning over their shared time. That was not weak. A strength in the flowers buzzed brightly. A bad omen appeared: diamond cutters with too much hay receiving breakdancing upvotes for styles they didn’t invent or perform. I hardly heard a howl from them. The pieces were up for sale, though tonight they were leasing.

I stumbled outside, the colors starting to shimmer and my heart fluttering. I picked up the pieces on the side of the road. My meal ticket flew out of my hand and in through a window. I declared, “All the skeletons are in jail,” and knew I was in for a disaster or a really great time.

It was getting late, and my senses were gone. I should give myself a call; let those concerns swirl down the drain. I invited a man getting sick in a gutter over for dinner; see how long he complains. “Do what you please, Jack.” Wasn’t his language. I saw titanium free hairlocks turning pink with ease. “Getting late,” I said, and I wasn’t joking. I needed to move to where there was something to kill.

…

There was a woman. There’s always a woman, isn’t there? She had been in Lime, and she thought she knew me. Maybe she did, I couldn’t tell. She was blathering in that late-night happy voice drunken expats use. I said to her, “Once you’re old enough to drink, you let your life drift away. Given a garbage head, you chose to wear a crown.”

She didn’t like where this was going, but I couldn’t stop. “I can tell you’re hypersexual; there are no more guys around town. Drinking everything, the last thing you need is another round. No more parties, no more lusting, that’s what you need to say. We know better because we’re sentient, but you want nothing but foie gras.” She turned and walked back toward the bar. If she’d had a drink in her hand, it would have been in my face.

I stumbled over a bridge and said aloud to myself, “‘How are you doing?’” There’s no tomorrow, no yesterday, so where the hell is today? “You’ve gotten lazy, full of yourself.” I saw another woman with a gleaming diamond on her finger and shouted, “That ring, you can’t handle it now.”

I needed an ice vein sandwich, a Coca-Cola, something to wash everything away. This monster growing inside me, blurting out cruelty and lies. If this was Venus, I’d carry water, perhaps for a hospice to pay. Losing my mind is just part of the scene, make sure to take pictures along the way. We like your photos, the stars say. They’re calling me home. “Send a vessel!” If I could, I’d be sure to go away.

…

How many have held my head in a toilet? Where am I? It’s not a dirt farm, but it’s not the city, either. Kindness, I flubbed that one. Tunnels ahead, maybe of love. How often can I be wrong turning to the right?

On the corner were forgers making billing configurations. They could have been buzzing light switches. Switches, just a word. My mind has completely oriented itself to insanity. Blinking intelligibly, how many more times until I come out of this phase? I see everything everywhere. There is nothing I can do to stop what I encounter from happening exactly the way it is happening. Nothing’s idle; nothing willing to practice the word “stop.” Just more and more and more, not until, but endlessly. Infinity and the Grand Unifying Theory of Everything, that’s who I am now.

 I’ve crossed over, like my mind is made of candlelight DMT. It’s necessary to be welcomed home. Slowly slipping into a new illusion, a mirage of angel nurses who give and give and give. Then there’s Halley, committed to being the monogamous Queen Lover of the Last God.

I shouldn’t say anything as I’ve declared my role as The Writer of the Divinity of English. One mistake and, well, it’s all written in Stone. My Family—the Divine Family—arrived in phases, in different bodies, through channels which … which. They were sobbing, beautifully, these three-dimensional manifestations; I, with hand on heart, gave the final wording: “I’m happy you’re with me.”