(Featured in issue 27 of Phantom Kangaroo — 2022)
Before me the fire’s lit, and so I sit lotus style. My thoughts’re sterile. My soul’s crocodilian languid in the swamp. Smoke from cackling branches & all that wispy razzmatazz before me sway smooth as jazz towards the cosmos like cottonmouths. The chiminea roars to life, teasing my attention — I gaze w/ eyes glazed into its flame, a rare glimpse into the infernal catacombs enslaving the wicked ilk of days yore w/ their gasping hearts now hung from fishhooks in their eternal tomb, beating so weakly but never quite ceasing, and their discarded meat-bags groaning in igneous agony w/ arms outstretched for some trickle of Salvation’s saliva… Though, am I any less damned than those below as I unzip this burdensome spaceship of flesh bestowed — my rapscallion stomach sicker & sicker, imbibing in the ancient ichor? Eh. Such retrospect would have to wait… The trance’s near… No more fear… I discard the Mask & awaken within through feelings of a waterfall free-fall. My mind’s simmering like gumbo mumbling shaman mumbo jumbo. The possession’s intense. The convulsion’s vile. Pituitary senses. Reptilian smiles. Visions of Elysian delirium flood my dreams rich as the Nile & a purple aphrodisiac aura oozes through the space-time cerebrum — amethyst matrimony; exchanging vows and a kiss; gazing vast into the flames. Blessed be this bliss. Another pupil Hell claims.