"I Haven't Been on this Road Before" by Nathan Merrill

I haven't been on this road before" is a sentiment I would often refract in some way at the relative peak of some chemically-induced trip: a drunkenness, a highness. "I didn't used to be like this," I once told a lover (with no memory of having done so) as I slipped into unconsciousness.

I hadn't been down this road before, I'd say. Excitedly, sometimes. Wistfully, sometimes. But always with a sense of long-overdue entitlement. Like I'd been robbed (by whom I couldn't say) of a cultural rite of youthful passage to freedom. From the inhibitions and fears of a muted self. From isolation.

Where to now?