Alcoholic Nights
alcoholic nights smelling of overproof rum and cheap rotgut,
when the smoky clouds in the living room refuse to dissipate.
nights when the liver twitches and demands a sacrifice even if
it means emptying the wallet and going to work the next day
with a massive hangover and in a genocidal mood.
these are the nights of true danger, when you have no idea
where you might end, what you might do.
it’s like gambling, only you can win more, and lose even more.
you can lose your job; you can find a girlfriend.
you can end up injured and/or missing body parts,
or wake up having created a masterpiece.
it’s the alcoholic nights that smell worse than a skid row dive
that have the greatest potential for anything and everything to happen.
Calls From Nowhere
sometimes. during good drunk nights, I wake
up in a fervor, confusing my alarm clock for a phone
call from Christine; on a couple of occasions, I’ve even
“answered”, hearing her voice in my half-asleep state of stupor dreaming.
it’s been thirteen years since I last heard her voice on the phone,
when she told me she’d be moving to Copenhagen while I was
away on vacation, and I sometimes wonder what would I do if
she somehow found my new number and gave me a real call.
would I go back to her? would I tell her I’ve turned into a better person?
would she even believe I’m not the whoremongering alcoholic junkie
she met, saved, then abandoned?
I have no idea; part of me wishes for her to return to my life, for
a second chance with the only woman ever coming close to
replacing Emily in my heart. on the other hand, I traumatized her enough
that I know she would never be able to trust me. perhaps, it’s for the
best we haven’t stayed in contact; it’s for the best I haven’t
seen or heard from her in thirteen years.
I prefer half-dreaming imaginary talks with her, hearing her
tell me she’s happy and that she found someone who
doesn’t shoot heroin in the bathroom or drains two bottles of Four Roses
during a calm Saturday afternoon.
Boozing It Up Early
boozing it up early, once again chasing the midnight train.
memories and future moments are juxtaposed in a nightmarish
amalgamation creating more restless nights. heading to work
with a liter of bourbon in the blood and almost no sleep,
the mind’s racing for reasons beyond my control and will.
booze clears some things up, and it blurs others.
no definitive answer found in any of the twenty empty bottles
of the past fortnight; perhaps the next twenty will have something
refreshing to offer.
Frigid Winter Nights
remembering frigid winter nights in a tiny
apartment; clouds of smoke choked out the air and vapor
crawled out of the spoon like thin blue snakes. Emily and I would sit
on the blue foldout couch already stained by melting junk.
hunger in our eyes, lust in our souls, everything felt so goddamn
all right—even if nothing was.
we’d kiss as the spoon was burning, and the first bubbles appeared.
sometimes, we’d trade a look of anticipation and sometimes, our
glances would express worry over what the fuck we were doing.
nothing could stop us; not even our love.
yet, those frigid winter nights, laced with cheap booze and heroin,
were the best months of my life.
madly in love, slowly dissipating into the madness I came to know
as life. and I had Emily by my side, begging me to burn the spoon
while kissing me.
frigid winter nights that’ll never return, and that’ll live
forever in my mind; no one else could have been there,
no one else will ever be there.
the frigid nights of junk beauty are interred in my heart,
and a lot of women have failed in their attempts to destroy them.