I wake. Suddenly. I'm not sure how I know but something is wrong. I'm staying at the Ananda Resort, a grisly backpackers which leaves me constantly checking my pockets every time I meet a new inmate. The flicker from the fluorescents outside cast erie shadows on my curtains. This is the fifth night in a row I've woken suddenly. Each night I've stayed up, waiting for something to substantiate my sense of looming disaster. Each night it has failed to arrive.

Two years ago I left my wife, sold our house and tried to carry on with my life. It took a bit over a year before I realised that the married course I'd charted no longer had to be a map of my future. I quit my job, sold what few possessions I had remaining, and bought a one way ticket to Bali. Three months later I find myself in an intensive yoga course in the Gulf of Thailand. I'm not quite sure how I ended up here but when you buy a one way ticket to Asia, the point isn't to end up where you expected.

It's morning and as I stretch I realise that the last thing I remember is a pair of eyes staring down at me from above the bed. As my body responds with panic, I realise that there is actually no fear associated with the memory. In fact if anything there is a sense of warm comfort, almost peace.

Shaking myself awake, I stumble into the bathroom. With the cold water pouring down my back I'm struggling to make sense of what is going on. What have I imagined? It certainly doesn't feel like a dream, the green eyes still float vividly in front of me when I recall the memory.

The school I'm attending warned us all about purification effects, that strange things can happen as you begin eating, living and thinking in new ways. This is not what I expected.

Our hubris has been believing that when the aliens come that they will be walking, talking creatures which we can comprehend. The reality is that the aliens discovered and exploited us millennia ago. So long ago that all we have left of the time before, is the whispers of folk tale and legend.

They descended upon us and traded directly with our subconscious. In exchange for a home, they offered soma. Perhaps this wasn't such a bad deal, reality was terrifying to our incipient human consciousness. Their offer of absolution in exchange for what we didn't yet understand, was gratefully accepted.

Yet some understood. As they watched their brothers and sisters fall under the spell, they understood the nature of the bargain that was struck. For now, within each of us, there is a voice crying to be fed. A voice that can be subdued but not silenced. A voice whose desire must be reckoned with each and every day.

“it's my birthday” she said,
sodden eyes scanning the street

the older man next to her,
with an unhealed scar on his chin
showed me he was waiting
for her caution to wane

i let her use my phone
gave her a hug and a kiss
asked “you okay?”, already
knowing that she wasn't

getting on the bus home
i changed my mind
turned around, looking
she was nowhere to be found

may the night be kind

Monkey fears truth,
so he hides in his bed.
Monkey seeks truth,
but goes surfing instead.
Monkey finds truth,
when he's not in his head.

Seven days ago he accidentally squished a caterpillar while pulling out a chair to sit down. Thousands of small grey hairs were embedded into the pads of his fingers.

Five days ago his fingers were covered in tiny blisters, each one centred precisely over the entry point of a hair.

Three days ago the blisters started coagulating, raising and fusing together into a single textured blister.

Two days ago he noticed that while swimming he could feel something moving inside the blister.

Tomorrow he will feel something circling slowly. Something exploring the confines of the blister, looking an escape.

Bending into Padahastasana, the energy courses through my legs. In sympathetic unison the crickets count the seconds away.

Listening to the drone of my teachers voice, I feel a gecko scurry over my toes to hunt for moths in the glare of the lights.

Looking up from my book, I see ochre tinged cliffs melting into the jungle below. Fork-tailed swallows flit through the skies chasing insects and cuddle on the roof, sharing chirps of intimacy.

Drifting in the pool, I strain to float effortlessly. Above me, in a haze of yellow and black butterflies, swarms of red dragonflies zigzag across the water.

Playing on the beach, we are joined by two young children. They howl in Thai as we skim a frisbee over their heads and laugh with unspoken pride when they pry the disk from the sky.

Hanging out in an empty pub, we make aimless conversation with the owner. As we laugh and talk a party slowly forms around us, John and Boi on the guitar, Kris and I singing.

Struggling to shape my thoughts into words, I'm approached by a young Indian boy who stares longingly at my computer. To his astonishment I don't have any games installed, instead we entertain ourselves by taking silly pictures while his father looks on and laughs.

Watching children play in the distance with a broken surfboard in the sea. Skimming it across the wash they shriek with laughter each time one of them gets catapulted into the air by an incoming wave.

Sitting, facing north, I close my eyes. I can hear the wind in the trees and feel the beat of my heart as I begin to count my breath.