Wine around the world

Once, a long time ago, you were an alcoholic.
I don’t know what you are now.
My uncle is a dry drunk.
I found myself with a problem drinker
a heavy drinker
and then there was just…the drunk.

One night after being told I wasn’t good enough
to provide shelter for the problem drinker
the heavy drinker and I went out to the local
liquor store
and I fell under the wagon wheels.

Liquid candy.

She bought six bottles of microbrew
and I skipped around the tropical fish
looking for the hardy
the hard
the sharp.

They didn’t carry the 1.5, and I feared
for a moment
that I would have to settle on the clear bottle
which bites the nostrils a little harder
and causes sniffling underwater.

Over two years after inviting her into the forest
her voice came from miles off the coast:
“You were drinking it like it was water.”

I thought about this insight
from a girl that can still pack it away.

I drank approximately a third of that liter
before I forgot what I was doing and went to sleep.
Not good enough to take proper care of a
problem drinker.

Not good enough for a drunk.

Well, fuck.
Little birds, little birds; tell me when I’m good enough
to look after myself without drowning.