I wanted to tell you this

though time is like sleet
falling through the Universe
and you and I are hundreds of lives asunder.

I wanted to tell you that
the lede for the creation of the Universe is ten words.
I strain my eyes to read it.
"In the beginning God created--"

And I'm lost after that.

My thousand selves are feasting on neurons and transmitters,
gnawing at the skull bone for some semblance of spiritual transcendence
trapped in the dying brainmatter---
some splatter of elves and other beings, colors, machines, tunnels with eyes, Gods and Devils, lizards driving school busses---

Only this and everything more, forever, ever more.

Where are the hallucinations we were promised?
Where are the wines dying on the vine?
Where are the wolves and the ants and the leopards?
Those creatures whose consciousness we should have entertained?
Where are the needles dancing on the head of an angel?

We went and found this, and most times we got a headache and a hangover.