mckenzington

During extreme adversity, the brain floods itself with serotonin to a level that can only be replicated through the administration of psychedelics. In fact, the main mechanism of the hallucinogenic and consciousness-altering effects of psychedelics is this same flurry of serotonin. That means that when someone has a near-death experience and claims they went to heaven and met God, you can tell them they're tripping. They won't believe you, of course, and why would they? Jesus didn't die on the cross so you could go around telling everyone that heaven is an LSD-induced dream. Bad for business, at the very least. If I had a near-death experience, I think I'd tell everyone that God somewhat resembles Elton John, and he has a message for all of us: it's lonely out in space. For a person that writes so much about love, I know shit all about it. But what I do know is that love feels a lot like dying without being dead. It's a flashing pain that lights up your wh

I don't know what an ending feels like, and that's because I've never let myself feel one - I learned in school that on the seventh day God rested  and if someone as omnipotent  as him can catch a break then surely it should be easier than this but if you never stop going maybe you'll forget where you started - maybe you'll forget that there was something before this migraine of a memory at all and man, I think I just need some time I wish I could crawl in between the spaces where calm hides but maybe those spaces are a worn out CD on a rainy day, a t-shirt so old you forget where you got it; maybe they're you: your run-on sentences and how you remind me of Christmas hearths or they're the plume of a Virginia cigarette or realizing that every home is new before it's old and to be honest, I'm sure that in the same way that the universe moves us all towards each other painfully slowly, I am moving too: the sa

I remember a time before. I remember it because I keep going back to it, like a squirrel who stored nuts for the winter; but also like a squirrel who stored nuts for the winter, it takes me a little while to find the place again. She kept me warm on the most unexpectedly cold days. She listened to the water that poured out of me on the rainy days and she listened well because she understood me. We were alike, but as much as two people joined by the word "stepmother" could be. I loved Christmas. I loved wearing the sweaters she gave me every year to wear to Christmas dinner and I remember a time before I had to go cry in the bathroom, wiping my runny nose on the sleeve of the sweater that I didn't really like that much anyway. Before arguments that don't involve me. Before arguments that do involve me. Before grief of something I lost that claims it has found itself. What mattered in this time was that she cleaned up blood that didn't match hers when I scraped

I'm not sure if it's their wet grins or their fingers that curl into the shape of a gun trigger but some people seem to camp rent free so easily in other's hearts. I am no exception to any rules but I have stopped blaming myself for doing what I could, for sometimes being less outspoken than I should have been, and for surviving the way I do. Just because you managed to get your tongue down my throat does not mean that I am easy. I am not easy because I have instead learned to be easy on myself when I'm not strong enough to do the right thing. I have learned that when Ferris tells you life goes by pretty fast, you should listen to him and take a look around. Tell me about your favourite movie, teach me about what makes you laugh and what makes you cry. As Stephen King said, we all look the same when we're puking the gutter. So tell me you're not afraid to see what's at the bottom, because we all do at some point. Let's be easy on ourselves when one o

It is summer and I am looking into the full length mirror in my bedroom admiring my slightly bloated stomach in my underwear. By admiring I mean I love it, and by I love it I mean I do not love it despite, I love it because. I do not think about anyone else and as the corners of my mouth turn up I run my fingers across my skin and feel like a woman with a body that is entirely hers. It is summer and I am on shrooms, topless, running on the boardwalk at night with my t shirt ribboning in the air behind me like a patriotic flag; the patriot is me, and I am also the country; my hair is silk and my body is ten years old again. Later I lie in bed and my stomach begs for gravol but my head sinks into the pillow like a smooth pebble in a stream and at the bottom of the riverbank is the hope that I will not forget that night. It is summer and I am swimming in the lake where the water is perfectly cold and the sky looks like cotton candy. I am right next to the city and I feel defiant: each str

If you watch the TV aquarium channel long enough, about three hours or so, a really big fish will swim across the screen. There's no way of knowing exactly when the fish will appear, but you'll eventually see it if you wait long enough. Approximately three hours of waiting for 30 seconds of glory. I can remember times in my life when I was depressed enough that I could have watched the aquarium channel long enough to catch the big fish. In fact, I probably could have repeated that cycle a few more times and, well, there's my whole day crossed off. I wouldn't describe myself as a patient person, but I have never had more patience than when I was depressed. Depressed people are some of the most patient people on the planet. Maybe that's why psychiatry waitlists are so long. The patience required for tasks like watching paint dry or hoping a plant will grow is a warm security blanket. You know you'll be here for awhile. You know that change will be gradual. You plu

Medicine estimates that your heart is about the same size as your clenched fist. But I think my heart is bigger than my fist. I've never thrown a punch at someone and my hand is so small I imagine it would barely make a bruise the size of a plum. He compares his hands to mine. I slide the base of my palm up just a bit higher than his and he slides it down to make sure the measurement is accurate but we know it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much bigger his hands are because he fits neatly between the pages of a heavy medical textbook and his fist is precisely the size of his heart. I can smell the coated paper as I place my palm flat against his left breast. My younger sister and I used to settle our frequent arguments by wrestling with each other. The only reason we now fight with words instead of limbs is because my sister now has about five inches and twenty pounds on me: I simply wouldn't win. My mother used to always remark, your sister loves you fully no ma

My dad is parking the car in our driveway and he tells me, "I've met this girl and she's a huge Tragically Hip fan". Without missing a beat, I tell him, "that doesn't make her special, you know". And he knows that I am right and he deflates the conversation with his silence. But I remember how my dad is always the one who says "I love you" first, how he told his second ex-wife on their second date that he was going to marry her. She thought he was crazy but she didn't know that he was just forming a constellation that she would one day long to camp under. My dad is always the one who says "I love you" first. I heard it when he kissed my mother's pregnant belly and I remembered it when I was born like a song heard in the womb. My dad is throwing a baseball at me and in the satisfying sound of the baseball falling in the center of my glove I hear it again. I throw the baseball back and it narrowly misses his head, thwacking agai

A hummingbird's heart beats 1263 times per minute its wings flutter 80 times per second if a panic attack is a distinctly human feeling then a hummingbird is nature's equivalent. I used to fill the feeder in my grandmother's backyard kneeling at the window, chin resting softly on the windowsill waiting for the hummingbirds to prod the feeder searching for sugar water. In this quiet observation I could hear my breath, inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I know that breathing can be switched to a voluntary action: all you have to do is think about it I know how still water looks in a glass at 3am and how cold air brings you back into your body like somehow you've forgotten it somehow you're standing in the waiting room of a UFO somehow solipsism sounds a little too convincing. One time I caught sight of a hummingbird it landed on the feeder its wings stopped beating and for once I noticed the quiet beauty the still dark eyes of bundled a