Like my father I drank to water down the
darkness in my head.
All the painful childhood
memories...
           my father's horrible addictions,
           my mother's illness,
           the torment of the other children,
           the overwhelming poverty

...diluted and replaced by
the symbiotic relationship of my imagination and LSD.
But somehow reality crept back in and
destroyed all my hard work.

Time created new wounds to heal...
            the terrible torture suffered by mother and sister
            and the unbearable silence that followed,
            my mother's death followed shortly by my father's
           then my grandmothers' and lastly my step mom

...and my mind tried to off itself, but different
chemicals thwarted that plan.

Nothing has dissipated, as I had hoped.  All those memories
have burrowed into my psyche and, like insects, laid eggs deep
in my brain.

Every so often one matures, escapes from the safety of
its confines, floods my brain with electric impulses of
rage, and finally exits my body leaving my
knuckles bloody and full of splinters