By Ethan S. Berry

Once I knew everything and thought myself more capable than others of understanding 

the things that I did not but then I awoke from my solipsistic slumber.

I spent many years blinded by sleepy sands, craving wisdom, when 

what I really desired most was knowledge.        

Whether that is comedic, or tragic, I will leave it up for you to decide;

but to think it is in some ways funny to think on how immediately 

upon escaping imprisonment from this darkness, self-imposed, I rejected reality 

and found myself yearning, as most periodically do, for the nostalgic comfort 

once afforded to me during that era of my life 

when I walked this Earth mummified by adolescent fantasies 

and was none the wiser, nor worse off, for it.         

Because the hydrangeas in my living room are ablaze now: 

the red, green, blue, and pink ones; all except for the lavender petals 

which set in their terracotta pot on a shelf away from the others

above a table lamp which hurls out phosphorescent rays 

easily able to pierce through the flora, 

casting a purple shade of gloom over the room.        

This phantom color seeps out the window,

into the streets and throughout the city, burning too 

alongside the insignificant embers which are smoldering right here 

on the cheap shag carpet in my living room.        

I warn anyone who covets knowledge,

information or superiority to think twice before they drink from Mimir’s Gjallarhorn 

as now my eye floats upon the surface of his translucent pool 

and I am no more able to look away from the flames 

spreading out across the world than 

I could a ten car pileup on the freeway.