NOT SEEKING ANY HALLUCINOGENS

Assailed by a brilliance

Painful in its clarity

Ambushed by flavors

And sounds

In a sneak attack

Far, far from their source

Assaulted on all sides

Even by the touch of air

As subtle barometric shifts

Bear down on me

Driven inside to home

To one room, to a space of mind

For relief, a bit of quiet

In a concentration so deep

The world beyond shatters

Unheard, unseen, unfelt

Almost forgotten

Thus pursued from earliest

Childhood I find

It strange in others

That they seek out the extremes

Of awareness and mourn

The loss as their experiments

With hallucinogens

Relinquish them

Into moments, days, years

Of muted, past knowledge.