Hippie Crack
Realising trauma's confusion of the mind. A poem from my debut collection & reflections on self-discovery through writing.
Administer the Laughing Gas (VERVE) 28/11/24
Hippie Crack
those silver bullets cocked
on curbs and gravelled parks
turn teenagers into wolves
in cars down backstreets
in the dark in cities on clouded
afternoons at day raves on borrowed
farmland after afters at the rise
and starve the brain mindless
when they learn the mindful
give and take of breathwork
puckered on rubber lungs
blown up with nos cracked
in cream canisters from those
silver bullets they close
their eyes to concentrate
breathe in eight beats and hold
blow slowly in the lung
and back in again and hold
blow slowly out until your lungs
are emptied and in again
eight beats and hold it blow
slowly out and there it is
forget to breathe and hold
slowly and hold tight chested
they forget who they are and all
thats left is corridors of breathing
hexagons they drift through
centres of mandalas and end
up with two numbers or two
figures or two members of each
sex with multiple genders and two
digits again of such satisfaction
they stop inhaling as they feel
they’ve just figured what reality
is and peace sets in as if
they have the answers for why
we exist and there it is when
they empty their lungs of silver
gas and air there it is the first
breath before the first cry their
heart flickers and they resist
until it threatens to blow out
as the oxygen fades its gone
the revelation is gone they know
once they hear sounds stuttering
back to collect and deliver
them back to the park to
the backstreet to the farmland
to the afters and the answer
dies once they inhale without
the rubber lung I had mastered
the give and take of breathwork
for surges in gas masks
and the answers left me
confusing two dates of birth
and death and forever remembering
her birthday the day she left
- Hayley Frances
Noticing self in the poem
When finalising the poems for this collection, I didn't have a reference to the epidemic of laughing gas, even though it's the book's title. I wrote this piece to tie the book to the present culture, but what came out of it was an awareness of confusion.
I often get dates mixed up, times wrong, alternate faces, forget names, forget instructions or relay them back to front. I confuse when and where things have happened, even though the experience rings true in my body and I have a clear sense of what happened.
At the centre of the poem, at the peak of the high that comes with starving the brain of oxygen, there's a note on reaching that point of ecstasy and satisfaction and what that looked like for me.
they forget who they are and all
thats is left are corridors of breathing
hexagons they drift through
centres of mandalas and end
up with two numbers or two
figures or two members of each
sex with multiple genders and two
digits again of such satisfaction
they stop inhaling as they feel
they've just figured what reality
is and peace sets in as if
I'd see two numbers / symbols / figures / thoughts / feelings, a Yin and a Yang - two polarising factors that equal the human condition - or so it felt like. (This is not a recommendation. Please do not go out there looking for nos balloons thinking you're gonna become God and find the answer to why we are here. The figures disappear within seconds, and you completely forget the point of satisfaction. You literally watch your brain cells die).
Realising trauma's confusion of the mind
At the end of the poem is an epiphany of how the fragmentation of memory, a side effect of trauma, impacts the behaviour of our minds.
and the answers left me
confusing two dates of birth
and death and forever remembering
her birthday the day she left
I wasn't looking for insight or attempting to document or process emotion in this piece. I simply wanted to have a poem that anchored the collection to society. I wanted a poem that respected the book's title, but it seems I cannot avoid uncovering more of myself with every poem I finish.
In this discovery, in noticing how I get things mixed up sometimes, rather than get anxious or angry at myself, I try to treat myself with compassion in the knowledge that my confusion is probably a result of my experiences and a natural mind-body response. My confusion is not a default; there isn't anything wrong with me.
CRATE POETRY
Fresh Poetry delivered to you weekly. Crate Poetry is a digital platform for performance poetry delivered weekly via YouTube.
I read 4 in total for CRATE POETRY, founded by Paul Stringer, a photographer and filmmaker who has documented the poetry community of the midlands for the past decade.
Thanks for the push bab.
x