How to Drink Yourself Sober
Step Five: Admitted to god, ourselves & another human being
– First confessional
Bless me father for I have sinned. I’m not going to tell
you I don’t buy anything you’re selling. Or twelve years
from now I’ll be driving blackout drunk, arm roped out
the window. You are not going to hear that twenty years
from now I will know the barrel of a gun tastes sour cold
sharp. You’ve no idea that one day she’ll not have to say
a word. The sky will burst in flames, heavens will plunge
into the sea. So, go ahead Father, tell me God’s forgiven
my sins. To go in peace. I have paid my penance by fire
and ash. Been absolved in cinder and smoke.
How to Drink Yourself Sober
Preamble: The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking
Let it bleed baby, bleed till we’re white. We are pale riders. Ghosts sucking the light
out of the tunnel, our bones left to blot out the sun. We are sons and daughters waiting
to mourn; ready to set the world on fire.
she calls me by name but I don’t recognize her
voice, the smell of her perfume, soap, shampoo
her body against mine is light:
all legs, long hair and ready
to start a revolution
she starts to say something but I can’t hear
I can only watch,
thinking I’m clever, knowing
she can see right through me
I am that fly on the wall. Yes. A thousand eyes. Unfocused, unclean, unable to swallow
and she knows. Yes she does. It is not to her advantage to forget. She’s watched
every move I make. I know. I know and there is power in knowledge.
I have that power. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste it.
How to Drink Yourself Sober
A Design for Living
When she’s five her mother spun a tale
of an angel who dropped to earth,
landed in a quarry.
She fell in love with a mortal,
asked him to bind her wings tight
against her back,
tried unsuccessfully to fit into his world.
Years later, when he died, she found herself
unable to fly back to heaven.
In her grief she flung herself into a marble slab
where she waits, to this day, for god to split it
in two to be reunited with him.
Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; he has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections Pop. 1280, and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Jasper’s Folly Poetry Journal, Beatnik Cowboy, One Art Poetry, Black Moon Magazine, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024by Bottlecap Press.