when you found me on the floor of that room i’d been backpacking for three months but living in asia for just over two years. after finishing college in atx (can’t tell you what a shock it was to connect with you here, all those months later, and learn we went to the same school!) i worked on a cube farm until i realized it was going to do me in, quit, moved to korea to teach, and after a couple of years was ready to move on and find myself again
that’s how i ended up in se asia. i first met k. in saigon then bumped into her again on the way out of hanoi, we both wanted to go to laos and somehow thought the best way to get there would be by 24 hour bus. by the time we got to vv i was beyond exhausted but ordered a ticket to the moon anyway and then slept for two days straight, sweating through nightmare the whole time. when i woke k. had met a. and invited her to stay in our room, they went off to explore some caves and i stayed behind to recover
they came back that evening, said they wanted a ticket too, could i show them the right bar? sure but none for me, i told them, i’ll just chaperone. they ordered and drank, we went to a neighboring restaurant for curry but an hour later they still weren’t feeling anything, they thought they’d been ripped off so we went back, demanded another round at a cheaper price, something nasty scratching at our voices, our throats were so dry—I think i remember anger in the bartender’s eye but that’s where my memory gets hazy because for whatever ungodly reason on the heels of waking from those two days of fever dreams i decided to chug another ticket
when the dubstep started bumping the neon lights started swirling we lifted off i remember roaring with laughter, all together, before realizing we weren’t laughing at the same thing or anything at all, wandered back to the hostel, thought we’d feel safer there, tried to buy water on the way but couldn’t make sense of the numbers on the bills they were so high in the room k. locked herself in the bathroom with the faucet on blast a. and i collapsed onto twin beds music bled through the walls, up from the streets, droning and twisting back on itself, like fabric stretched to three times its length when i realized the sink was still running i grew terrified for k., knocked on the door, asked if she was okay, could i come in? no. how about a.? sure. a. went in i sat cross-legged just outside the open door the sink kept running a. took out her phone—cue paranoia—suddenly so weak, barely holding on, that’s when my face smashed into the concrete floor
there was a flurry of movement, the front door open to the night sky, someone handing me a trashcan and screaming VOMIT but i don’t know if that was before or after you arrived, don’t remember you getting me into the tuk tuk, don’t know if i remember the ride to the clinic or only imagined it after a. and k. told me the story. mostly i was somewhere else, out of body, watching myself talking to my family in off white light, telling them i was sorry i wouldn’t make it home but taking comfort in their pleas not to worry, all they wanted was for me not be in pain anymore. saw myself playing…later writing…saw other things i can’t explain in this already outrageously long letter…then i was descending a black staircase spiraling into darkness, listening to someone straining to breathe, soon understanding that someone was me, at the bottom was a blinding light and when i surrendered to it, forgetting my body, forgetting my name,
by jagged mountains lined
with silver mist
along a river deep
and wide
where drifters go
to smoke and munch
on drugs that make them
lose their minds
they slipped us something shady
we went crazy
passed out on the bathroom floor
we slipped through higher highs
and lower lows
than we had ever felt
waking up with an IV in your arm
will make you reevaluate all that you do
when i was stumbling my way
through the dark
there was only one voice
that could find its way
through
can’t place her face
just read her name
on a note stuck
to the door
she wished us
clearer minds
and fuller hearts
than we had ever known
but when i comb my
mind for that missing time
the brick that loosed and broke
this dam
i reemerge
with empty hands
on a tuk tuk journey
like i’m strapped to a gurney wondering
if i’ll lose my life
colors bleed together
i can’t hang on
my sister says
it’s ok
her assurances wash over
me like a wave on
a distant shore
feel caught in the undertow
but more ready
to let go than
i have ever been
but when i comb my
mind for that missing
time the brick that loosed
and broke this dam whatever
shot me home and back
out on my own and across
the world again when i
plunge the depths
of that night we
spent unsure on which side
of life we’d land i
reemerge with empty hands
11:17 