When I Drink
When I drink,
the ever-present pain
in my back dulls
just enough to help me forget
what it is to be human.
When I drink,
you become both
exceedingly attractive
and evermore attainable
within the same passed hour.
When I drink,
the shitty music playing
at this bar, club, hole-in-the-wall pub
takes a turn for the tolerable.
My memories of every song
I’ve ever heard become more fluid,
filling in the gaps where this track is lacking.
When I drink,
my dancing improves drastically,
both in my head and the space I fill.
The muscle spasms are likely exactly the same,
but when swung with far less reservation,
appear better, sexier, bolder.
When I drink,
my teeth tend toward numb
and my tongue unfurls to flap out
every word that’ll fly on the wind.
They propel me forward into what would
have otherwise been a night of dead seamen.
When I drink,
I become more confident, more direct,
more the person I feel I ought to be.
I’ve always been an enabler,
but only liquor lets me put the springboard
under my own feet – vaulting me forward
toward a flight that only gets more exciting
with the prospect of a bigger crash.
When I drink,
I always overlook the warning label
hidden on the bottle’s back corner.
It screams, in its loudest, tiny-print voice:
May cause delusions of grandeur.
These will be fierce, fun, and loyal,
but they will be short-lived.
The body will only turn a blind eye
to the mind’s tricks long enough to bed her.
Then he will slug himself in the gut and purge
everything that temporarily made him think
he could ever be greater
than mortal.