The Poodle Gives Me Flowers

I will drink

until your eyes

melt down your face.

I will drink all night, unphased,

because my mother told me

that alcoholism was mythology

concocted by greedy physicians.

I will try to find meaning in the haze

of unsobriety and disorientation,

when left is right and what’s right is hidden.

I will pray to a god I don’t believe in

to stop my ears from ringing.

The bite of wicked spirits

will stain my esophagus.

We are what we drink,

and what I drink is bitter

like winter or lemonade.

Head heavy, full of pixies,

I will keep drinking

until I unbury my voice

from years of secrets and shame.

I will learn to hate the way

the curtains hang and tear them

away from the window,

leaving holes

in the sheet rock,

and I will walk

up the stairs,

down the stairs,

up the stairs again until I fall

into a bout of laughter, crawling

until my eyes melt down my face,

and I realize that I’ve had better days,

but this wasn’t the worst.

I will drink

until the poodle gives me flowers

and I question my sanity,

on the tile with the husky,

howling together

until we wake the neighbors.

I will drink to find

myself somewhere between

the lines of overthinking and apathy,

when memories are slight impressions

that must be inspected

in the morning away

from the tipsy haze

and unabashed honesty.