Paige Johnson

Soft Launch

Before my first inhale of 8-bit Heaven, 
I’ve only known ketamine to be 
what Publix butchers palm-pass 
in fun-size bags, some spikey 
space dust bought off single 
mothers as kids squish soggy 
fries into their backseat carpet.

I only know it has something
to do with nailing roommates
to lumpy couches. Wall-eyed
meditation among sunrise weeds.
What blacks out embarrassment 
after Kraken oil Rum rummaging
past midnight that leads to thrown
phones and punched houseplants.

But in your bedroom, in the tufted 
quail-blue office chair, K sounds
safer, kinder, described as LSD lite,
sedating like BNW Soma, short-lived,
not life-consuming or -threatening.
It looks like cocaine, an icier snowfall.
We cut pale worms on a paper plate.

In the minute before ignition, I paint
smiling snails and obese bumblebees,
put on a gravelly podcast that makes 
the apocalypse sound like a nuclear field day.