Out of My Mind

(3 January 1993) after William Herbert Carruth

We live in the worlds we create in our heads— and no one can escape alive. Here we encounter memories and mountains green trees turning blue in the distance, ideals and idols gilded and jewelled with curses against the violators, phobias and friends — protecting the stems of our attachments— As we crawl from the jungle of dreams each morning, we rebuild the false storefronts, string the buildings with strands of metal, and reenact the rituals that separate us from the fates that we imagine, dressing, washing, and brushing, pacifying our appetites with animal, vegetable, mineral, or we do not pacify ourselves and die our own ways, drawing ever deeper into the worlds we create in our heads.