Woke up drunk with the distilled residue of science, dewed in the empty glass tubes, experimental, dropped like teardrops around my room. If this is the test, where is the control? I ask myself, barely moving, eyes so lulling as to roll.

“Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are,
for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.”

If this was a stain, on memory… I believe it was the juice and pulp of crushed forget-me-nots… and strain to think the purpose of the blot was to be washed out on time and future sunlight, described in trials as ‘the best disenfectant’.

Where you are, I know the price of potions. Choice, the things you need, the paths like rivulets draining for the hours you so frequently do waste. But tie a ribbon round the neck of this decapitated thought: New Year, Revolution. I am coming for you. Don’t burn away the mind all mind a way you got.

(Crucible, STL 2020/1)