Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Snare

The curse of alcohol is that you can never move
away from the town where you’ve made the bars home.

You can never save up enough to purchase 
a way out of your problems.

Each shot becomes an expression of the regret
you can’t swallow, so you fill your cup again.

You settle for being empty and never quenched;
and each drink becomes more desperate than the last.

You cycle between the highs and lows
of your glass only to come to understand

you drank yourself away years ago.
And you can never get that time back.

And you cope with the bottles, 
and you love them.

Because the booze blacks out the memory
of your buddy’s head exploding;

the cold glass feels better than the warm blood
from when you bandaged another’s shrapnel wound;

because it was hot in the desert and the whiskey

pulses flame through your heart and mind.