upon arrival, a rare vitality, the scene - contact buzz everyone beautiful, witty, goofy, loud - set up camp, share beer, tequila, smokes, stories, introductions all around, everyone's cool, the 20 year old first timer... camp sprawl looking for k, hard to find, plenty of everything else though - expensive food, expensive cloths, cheap drugs...

we hit the rave, hitting peak hours, through the forest and clearings from stage to stage, through town, the energy ramping up and up and up, lasers pulsing, fireworks crackling, people cheering, stoners giggling - decorations, ornaments, spray art, glowpaint are at an unprecedented density and aesthetic coherency retaining diversity... the "enchanted forest", it's official, i'm enchanted, our hangout, saving that hit of blotter for later, and everyone wanders through, the locals, the albertans, the lost, the found - a table with geometric playthings, lights everywhere, every color, a communal croquet set in the dirt, a tea stand with a donation jar - our newfound aussie friend offers

i take it, don't need to fake it, take things, everything in every orifice, pills and more pills, don't care anymore, i'll try everything, he's not gonna lie to me, those pills are mostly meth, but okay that'll work, that'll work, take things, more things, stay awake, can't sleep, wish i could, try to sleep, paranoid, having fun, not having fun, yayo gets me high still at least, just want to be somewhere else, home, i know home will feel fake, but it will feel sort of perversely genuine at the same time, moreso than this, this isn't home, this is camp fake and i'm drinking the koolaid, drunk on koolaid but i can still leave, it's not the hotel california, i'm jonesying for anywhere but jonestown, no one's willing to help, my campmates don't want to drive, niki's sigh is a death knell, the guilty verdict, my personality rendered void

i say i'll pay you anything just drive me out of here cause i can't sleep and i can't trust anyone, i hate this place and everyone here, and obviously you can't help me, so i'll have to do it myself, try and misassemble my tent, deassemble, detelescope, assume the worst, make an ass out of you and me, a monument to failure, being emblematic of shambhala, being the dregs, decrepit wheel rolling in the dirt, trying to try, failing to try, unable to sleep, still, so sickly aware, dead sentient

run into tony, finally, he drives me home, a messianic mission, ain't nothin but a thing - i try to be calm in the car, chat with the hitchhiker, smoke
"so, you about sick of this whole scene?"
"yep"
"was fun for a while, but i've had about enough"

thank god there are one or two decent people left
get home, sleep forever, no neverland, no nothing

i'd play you a song right now, if anything was real
unfortunately reality proved hallucination
like the old heads used to say
and there's nothing to play
my playlist has dwindled
to nada
nothing works
nothing should work
to work would be perverse
working order a grating alien imposition
intolerable, murderous, poisonous
even moreso than the chaos
chaos is at least mercifully meaningless
what works is nothing, i should die, today's the day
if i had motivation

well tomorrow's another day
hope it never comes
i can't believe the poisons i ingest
one day it will take a toll
today i don't remember, can't believe, won't believe
rose would make me feel better, she will make me feel better
one of these days, soon, but
i need to treat her right
i try sometimes