and the jungle breathed

dear rodrigo,

last night i got to be in the jungle.

marta gave me something to drink that tasted kinda gross--  i don't really know what it was, which is weird for me--  but i trust her.

there were these brown and purple orchids that seemed like they were bobbing up and down, dancing almost.  suddenly i got the distinct impression that they were an alien life form, not flowers at all, and then they started making this barking kind of noise.  it reminded me of the flowers in alice in wonderland and i expected someone to demand who are you?  but no one did.  then, in my mind's eye, the mushrooms from fantasia whirled by;  slightly altered, now red and turquoise white spotted caps, devoid of asian features, but still to tchaikovsky's chinese dance which swirled backward in time to become a frenetic tweaked version of the coffee dance.  my cheek bones felt like they were cutting through my face, did that mean i was smiling?  then the music stopped and, even though this doesn't make sense, in the place the music had occupied, was frida kahlo.

tell me, she demanded, sounding vaguely like freud somehow, what was your vision when you smoked salvia?

it was like i fell into a well of darkness, the absence of everything good.  there were images and connections like a film from clockwork orange, but it was all too fast for me to see.  then i was spit out the other end of the well, and i was at a bus stop.  like one of those desolate desert diner ones from old movies.  i'm standing there by a billboard alone, alone in the world with my clunky hard sided sampsonite o.d. green suitcase.

and what did you think that vision was telling you?

mostly, i thought it was telling me not to smoke salvia.

i think it was telling you something else.

what?  what do you think it was telling me?

i think it was telling you:  get on the bus.

but, ya know, i'm wishing the universe could have chosen someone other than frida kahlo to tell me that.

love,
clementine