application for a release from the dream is a poem by tony hoagland

i signed a petition to advocate for the the use of psilocybin in the treatment of PTSD. It arrived in the mail with a 19 page booklet outlining the program in the tiniest of fonts with no margins, to save as much space and money as possible to mail it. Attempting to read it is like drugs, is like deciphering a new language. it’s like realizing we needed to break up after doing mushrooms on a random thursday after work, just because. just because you scored them from a co-worker and it didn’t matter that it was thursday at 5:30PM and the sun was still out and the buses were full of people on their way home from work. just because you spent all day on my couch watching television and used my only towel and left it on the floor of my room wet and useless. we crushed them in the blender with orange juice, your suggestion, like a mushroom smoothie was a good idea, like our relationship was a good idea, born out of a handful of nights drunk at the Hemlock and the Page, like “Hey, you might be fun.” but you were really just ok. like the kind of person who does psychedelics to sit on the couch in front of the television when all i want to do is go outside but I don’t remember what shoes are. “outside is where the oxygen lives!” i told you. “outside is where life lives!” but you looked around me to watch a progressive insurance commercial like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.