Reviewing these words written years ago, I have betrayed you a second time. I glossed over the moment I lost you. It was my action that killed our love. I read these words and wonder how much truth can possibly be in them. Long ago, I would have found excuses. Now, even the excuses are not enough to allow me to forgive myself for what I did to you: the problems with birth control, the biochemical after effects of LSD, and the horrors of Vietnam with my Lottery Number of 19 and yours something like 221 or maybe even lucky 321. More than 30 years after our love, I will try to be honest. Even this is not enough to forgive me. I will need for you, someday, to find me and forgive me. If you can.  

   Mark switched off the overhead light and lit three candles: one beneath the red Indian blanket hanging like a mural on the sloping wall, another by his expensive stereo system and extensive album collection, and the third on a bookcase over his bed. He also lit some wisteria incense I brought for atmosphere. 

   I removed my coat and sat on his bed, leaning against the wall. Psychedelic geometric day-glow posters mixed with "Yellow Submarine" movie posters and anti-war fliers. He answered a knock on the door and introduced you, Dennis, and his other friend Tom. I didn't recognize you, although you said we had met before. You quickly make yourself at home by placing Moody Blues In Search of the Lost Chord on the stereo while we nervously discuss the weather. You situate yourself at the foot of the bed while Tom curls into a beanbag, the corner acting as cave-like protection. All three of you wear glasses so I feel compelled to wear mine.  

   "Are glasses necessary to see on LSD?" I ask.  

   Everyone laughs, but I don't understand the joke. 

   Mark removes the Windowpane from his stash and explains its name to me, saying it originated from the clear plastic substance the LSD was dropped onto. He has already sliced it and assures me it is pure, not laced with strychnine. He gives each of us a piece. I stare at the innocent-looking stuff on my fingertip. "Why isn't it in sugar cubes?"  

   Mark reminds me Champaign is not Haight-Ashbury. 

   "But it used to be in sugar cubes, here on campus," I protest, but all three of you look blank. I explain how my dorm friends did LSD back in '68 and '69, with sugar cubes and four-way tabs. 

   "Put it in your mouth," Mark tells me impatiently. He has agreed to drop acid with me for the first time because I had once made love with him for the first time, but now he is angry. 

   "I feel I should say a prayer, as if this were my first Holy Communion," I say. You, tall and thin, sitting at the foot of the bed, do not understand, so Tom explains the Catholic ritual miracle of Transubstantiation of bread and wine changing into Jesus Christ's actual body and blood during Mass, and how Catholics eat small, thin, round wafers of Communion bread and thus Christ becomes a part of them. 

   Mark groans, "Oh God, a religious trip!" I look at him. "Put it in your mouth, now," he commands. 

   I want to ask him what he means about a religious trip, but he holds his hand to me to stem my words. He leaves the bed and turns the music louder. The Moody Blues speed through galaxies as we talk about classes, homework, the weather and politics. I wonder what happens on one's first trip through the birth canal because I see an old, white-haired man, golden robes, with a black staff, learning against a rush of wind and calling out directions: Turn east in the morning... then his voice is muffled by a drugged birth entrance and someone is saying, "This sure is strong LSD." 

   Mark shakes his head. His wavy hair floats about his face as if he is in water. My eyes widen, then become wild. 

   Someone pats my leg, "It's okay," he says. "Smoke this," and hands me a jay. I feel like Alice in Wonderland, drinking the contents of the bottle labeled, "DRINK THIS." 

   "What good will smoking marihuana do? Won't it make me high?" I ask. 

   Everyone laughs. '"Takes the edge off the speed, Zola," Mark says. We sit next to each other for a while, the he moves away. I need at least a millimeter of his bodily warmth to ground me in safety, and eventually crowd him into a corner.  

   "How long does it take to hit?" I ask. 

   "Thirty to 45 minutes," Tom answers. I look at Tom and realize his lips didn't move. I turn to you, Dennis, at the foot of the bed. You nod, so I think it was you who spoke. 

  "Isn't that now?"  I ask and look at my watch. The black markings make no sense. The second hand, or was it some other device, races wildly in circles and then I see a sundial stand atop my watch. No one answers my question so I repeat it into the air. Mark tells me to be quiet and touches another jay to my elbow," Have some more of this." 

   "Smoke fire?" I ask in amazement. 

   "Yes," he says, his voice sharp. 

   "Didn't you notice it starting?" Tom asks from the corner as he huddles to ward off the snow which clings to all our clothes. 

   I am not fond of snow and cold, so I shift my eyes to the red-blood Indian print spread about the stereo and notice the wavy vines breathe in tune with my mind and the music. Then, ever so gently, the vines are not just breathing on the spread, but they are leaping from the walls and into 360 degrees about me. Pheasants and peacocks flutter from one branch to another. A nightingale sings and I am transported into a jasmine garden, with Middle Eastern time. Intricate, geometric blue lines in calligraphy upon the wall of blue mosques beckons. Magically, I see exotic trees and radiant flowers I can not name but can only stare at in wonder and inhale their rich perfumes. Dusk comes to this grand palace where the desert is hot, but home. 

   I shake my head in awe and the vision clears: I am back in the fraternity room, all cozy and normal, with books and candles. Someone is saying, "That was very nice," but the voice issues from no human source and Mark is not next to me. He is across the room, learning against the record rack, staring at me. I don't know how much time elapses. He holds up his hand, American-Indian style, and points to an image he is building on the wall beside himself. 

   His body emerges from the side of a huge black iron steam engine, huffing and clanging its way across the just completed traces of the First Continental Railway. I think this means he is leaving me so I protest. He shifts my gaze from his face to the countryside. 

   His lands are ablazed with the images of the silent Indian receiving his strength from the Great Spirit long before the white man pollutes his lands. Sun Dance follows initiation rites, birth rituals follow mating games. He twists me around his inner core, showing me our love was mutual, yet old and cannot be renewed in this life.  

   It is true, we had loved and our only bond has been his initiation into manhood and this LSD trip that is his return gift to me. I feel love is boundless: that it has no time, rites, ages of manifestation. That one small kernel of love can blossom into an eternity, a world of brilliant colors that are floating pass me faster and more beautiful than the 88 crayolas I played with as a child. 

   I look at Mark, but he refuses to share the colors. He refuses to speak, as he has often refused when we dated. Instead, he directs my attention back to his images.  

   His is white now, racing towards the Pacific Coast with drug dealing. The steam engine reappears, him as the engineer with a red bandana about his forehead, yanking the warning bell. Buffalo slow leave the track but the iron bulk resists my hand fluttering a white handkerchief. If I remain and he continues at that speed, I will be like Buster Keaton: plastered to those huge iron teeth. I move off the track and try hitch-hiking into his future. 

   The eye within sputters into an Old Faithful geyser as his train fades into the distance and I stand in the desert. I hear voices trying to locate my distress on various maps, but the feelings connect with my birth in 1950, at 87 degrees west longitude and 41 degrees north latitude and the man called Father.. 

   I close myself off and no sound penetrates my monk-like cellar; only the Cross of Christ and my altar to God, piled high with all the hours of singing Latin at the 8:20 mass in grammar school. 

   "Why have you come to me with drugs?" God asks. 

   I look at the source of the voice and recognize God from my childhood dreams. 

   "I didn't think I was worthy because of all the men I've bedded," I confess. 

   "You know this breaks our Covenant?" God's voice sounds exactly like Charelton Heston in "The Ten Commandments." It has a strong, ringing quality, as if it were issuing from the center of my mind. I adopt my childhood persona when I often sat in his lap. He has the same throne and I assume my small, scrawny, bowlegged five-year-old self. I look around the huge hall for a chair. 

   "You have sinned!" God thunders, rising from His throne.  

   Startled, I cease dragging a wooden chair from a dark corner and look at Him. I haven't seen Him that belligerent Jehovah in so long, and remember the time times we played like that, that I laugh and his face brightens. "Just teasing to see which God you prefer," He says. 

   He gathers his robes and resumes sitting. He points His open palm to His side, making a golden throne almost as elaborate as His own, with intricate gold work and inlaid precious stones. This is one of our old jokes, the thrones. Sometimes He gives me a student chair, like the one I was dragging from the corner; other times, it is my grandmother's horsehair couch or plush velvet cushions or a Persian magic carpet. 

   I settle into the junior throne and immediately feel....