*
The sun sings out. Blue. Violet. It licks your skin.
Why did we ever think it would be hot?
You lift your limbs - they feel weightless. Yes, you can get there.
You can get anywhere.
You can fly.
(At least, you think you can.)
(That’s the danger. But you don’t think about that now, with the song beneath your wings.)
You see the ground swell up towards you. The smell of green hits your face.
Stretch.
Reach.
Soar.
Fall…
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Outside is pure energy and colorless substance. All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.” Albert Hofman, chemist, discoverer of LSD
“Turn on, Tune in, Drop out.” Timothy Leary, author, The Tibetan Book of the Dead
“It’s a psychic energizer...It releases the subconscious. It makes you see all of your guilts, fears, repressions and insecurities. It makes you free.” Cary Grant, actor
“He’ll fly his astral plane/Takes you trips around the bay/Brings you back the same day.” Ray Thomas, songwriter
“Lay down all thought/Surrender to the void./It is shining.” John Lennon, songwriter
“It is proposed by that LSD acts primarily on the pleasure or reward centers of the brain, producing a surge of nonspecific emotionality. If it registers as bliss or rapture, it dominates the sensory flow, the concept of self, the thinking process. This strong emotional discharge overwhelms all mental activity and produces a fusion or synesthesia of the neural pathways: perceptual beauty and glowing light, erasure of the self concept and elimination of rational thought. This is the transcendental state; its opposite, the psychotic state, occurs when the strong feeling discharge is perceived as horrific and discordant.” Sidney Cohen, psychoanalysist
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
When you’re a homeschooled high-schooler, the rebel stage is a bit different. You don’t exactly rebel because you can’t. Your parents would notice the smell of weed, glassy eyes. They would know if you brought boys home, even if you have a door to your room that opens to the back yard. Wait, what boys? That’s right, you don’t know any.
You stay in. Locked in your room, voluntarily. Under the pretext of doing your algebra homework, you open a memoir by a 1960’s model within your textbook. She writes about being married to a Beatle, being a muse to designers like Ossie Clark, running away with Cream’s lead guitarist. The drugs escalate throughout the chapters. Marijuana. LSD. Ecstasy.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She makes it sound so glamorous. Magical. You want to escape to Swinging London and have Ossie throw dresses to you from his closet. Socialize with people like John Lennon. David Hockney. Mick Jagger. We didn’t worry about the drugs back then, she writes. Uppers and downers were harmless. Lighting up a joint was fun. And even though her first trip was terrifying, acid was an adventure where you never knew exactly what would happen next. Ah, the thrill of the unpredicted.
You have less of a chance of obtaining LSD than turning the time back to London in the 1960’s. Instead, you collect a series of albums. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. In Search of the Lost Chord. Days of Future Past. You raise them to the highest volume without annoying anyone else at home. Allow the words to flow through your brain until they’re only sounds. You pick up the pencils fallen beneath your bed. Swirls of color bleed onto the white void of paper: eyes, rainbows, a random octopus. Later your brother asks if you’re drunk. No, you say, just tripping.
