Dear God in heaven,
Are you bipolar? Is that why you needed hell?
Given the choice, of course, I’ll take heaven
But maybe it’s not up in the clouds
Maybe it’s in the molecules
In the brain’s god center
Just behind the ear in the temporal lobe
Part of the subcortical nuclei
The basal ganglia in the rostral cerebral hemisphere
Just above the limbic mind,
the lizard brain of hate and fear
Worshiping at the fleshy altar
in the wiggly jello of the brain
Makes me feel like god’s in the room
Gives me solace, where there is none
The illusion of serenity will have to do
But why is it postponed until postmortem?
Perhaps illusion is all I can trust
Until I find myself back in the nothingness
And remember that I am still nothing
Who won’t know I even existed
when the play ends
Apart from the memories hopes and fears
Now no longer animated
Just more chemical reactions between my ears
If knowledge brings shame then the sin
Is in the synapsis
And redemption is an empty promise
Because heaven only exists
Like a carrot projected on an ancient wall
A spiritual mirage in the stew
Of biological and chemical reactions
I call myself