Awfully real

she realized once something was different
some called it psychosis
some called it enlightenment--

sometimes she wept
sometimes she laughed
sometimes she spoke in many tongues
sometimes she said nothing at all

she was on the edge of the volcano
making her offerings
because one night she dreamed
of a lava sky

flowering, flowing, pouring down
like hot honey, too hot of course
and we disappeared in the blink of an eye

it might have been an asteroid
the one that had been predicted
and maybe now we are underground
somewhere waiting for the new world

she would talk about these things
on her own speaker's corner
over by the 7/11

if only she had put a hat out
and did performance art
instead of being awfully real
and taken away
to chemical straightjacketville