A Taste of the Afterlife

February ?, 2015

Pre-script: there is a self-harm/suicide trigger in this poem.

Tonight there will be a raucous party
A catharsis for the whole human race at once
It will be everything you ever wanted and more
Dionysus will be there
and Shiva the destroyer of worlds
and all your friends, and all your mother’s friends, and all your lovers, and all the people you ever wished were your lover but you never said hello to


There are people everywhere and all of
them are smiling
with a look on their face like the thing they’ve been waiting for their whole life will soon walk through the front door
The anticipation is joyous and orgasmic
and everyone’s eyes are the happiest
you’ve ever seen eyes before
You realize that pain can no longer exist
and your insides begin to churn like you
just took a very powerful drug
It becomes hard to breathe because it all
feels so good
There are naked people dancing in the kitchen
And a beautiful woman walks past you laughing
She is wearing a Casper the Ghost T-shirt
Casper winks at you as she walks past
Everyone was glowing and moving like they had forgotten the rules
People’s voices are filled with magic
and you imagine that is what
people sound like in Heaven
It feels as if people are touching you
but they are just smiling
No one is taking drugs because they don’t need to
Everyone is on it
But there is no way to describe it
Your un-born sister is painting symbols of life and death making love to each other
on a mirror in the bathroom
A Radiohead song connects all the souls together by a cosmic string
And everyone is breathing like they are
in love with the music
And all the stars are breathing too
And “there are two colors in my head”
And there is the part of yourself that
wanted to walk into the forest at night
during a snowstorm and sit down under an old juniper tree
and trace all of the veins in your left arm
with a razor blade
and watch the beautiful blood stain the virgin snow
until your eyes begun to shut themselves
That part of yourself is throwing dice with Etta James and Jimi Hendrix in a corner of the room
grinning from ear to ear
Looking longingly at a Colombian woman with dark, dark hair and dark, dark eyes
who appears to be in her forties, grows her own coffee, named her children Izabella and Carlos (after Carlos Santana) and plays the piano for herself for no one else to hear
She is asking that part of you to dance
That part of you says yes
You think to yourself, “silly me”

You wonder, “how will I remember this?”
And “Everything, Everything in its right place…”
You then hear a voice inside saying

“All I wanted was to paint you a picture of a more innocent time. 
Now I can close my eyes. 
Finally I am at peace.”