Hangover anatomy.
Through the hole of an empty bottle
a rolled parchment paper contains
a list of past afflictions made
by the firstborn of our family:
1) I was born here, not there.
2) I grew up here, not there.
3) Problems grew with me, here. While I was wishing being there.
4) I went there and it wasn't what I expected.
5) The postcards sent showed a paradise beach, but when I reached there was just a blasfemic preacher thorning minds with verbal misery.
6) The giant palm trees were doomed, and so was I.
7) Nothing there to envy but the gone past.
8) Tortured minds of tortured children torturing cats and dogs and birds and strange coastal flowers.
9) Never ending heat.
10) My tears were vapour.
11) People stared when I wore long socks.
12) Forty days later there were still stories about plagues. I realized the plague were their minds.
13) Iconoclast slavery everywhere. I still didn't understand who that old man wearing gold threaded robes was.
14) Fifty days later I saw here. And she was plagued. Our children plagued, all but one. Henry. Our firstborn.
15) We both hid and were immediately found by the priest. Fucking old jackal.
16) The taste of rum sickened me, but the effect was the only reason that kept me alive for the following weeks.
17) There was a voice in the prison gutter. A voice I found familiar. My hair was grey. My hands were striped. The chains were rusty.
18) I escaped and found the beach filled with bodies, and the bodies filled with flies.
19) I came back to prison to liberate the gutter voice. It was Henry, he grew up as the only free mind in this island.
20) I was old now. But he was a strong adult. There were little boats. He took one and went away.
21) I went to the rum cellar again, to drink loneliness till death.
22) The bottle's now empty and there's nobody left to grief with. She's gone, her body's gone, Henry's gone and I'm alone. Me and the island, alone.
I rolledthe parchment back to the bottle
I felt weak as I tasted my tears
I remembered that now and then
I sometimes drink alone.