There’s a strange country
tucked away in the mind.

One can stumble into it
without expecting to;
Have you been there?

I remember pounding a drum to echolocate reality.
But the spongy landscape swallowed all sound.

A spastic second of fury and neural fireworks seized me
before I was overcome by the sadness
that terror was my go-to response
in the face of the unfamiliar.

What if I’d decided to be exhilarated?

Could one rise from the dead of living?

And so it came to be that the strange country cracked open,
giving birth to a world anew.
And leaves and rocks glittered with a cleansed glow.
And familiar country was suffused with an aura of novelty.