Honesty

I've had a hard week.

The money isn't coming like it used to,
through no fault of my own,
but the good times have dried up.
I've been spending the majority of my time with
faces younger than mine and
half the time they have no idea
what I am talking about.

Tonight I broke down.

I got off of work and I went
a few doors down to the bar.
I walked in and saw the usual suspects
and it reeked of alcohol and shame.
I could actually smell the odor of bodies sweating
away mixed drinks and martinis and
I turned to someone and said as much.

"Yeah, isn't it great?" he asked as he smiled an inebriated
smile.
I nodded and the bartender passed me a glass.
"On the house," she said.
I took the glass outside and sat down in the evening air.
It was humid and I stared at the glass in my hand.
I raised it to my lips and before contact was made
I lowered it again and thought about everything:
How tomorrow I would feel sick
and how tomorrow I would need a ride to work and
how I would still be so empty and
how I would curse myself for the whole thing.
I stared at that glass of wine for ten minutes
until I stood up, walked to my vehicle, and
got in.
One good decision.
One in about eight years worth of terrible ones.

I never realized how painful and difficult it would be
to stop being a drunk.
I have built an empire around the sauce and
ninety percent of the relationships I have built
revolve around it.

Alice.
Bottles of wine and cigarettes.
Endless conversations over glass after glass.
Drunken sex and headache mornings.

I stood outside tonight and looked up at the sky.
The house is far enough from downtown that you can still see a star
or two.
I realized that I now embody the antithesis of everything that
I ever wanted to be
as a child.
I have become trapped in this feminine energy
that keeps me captive in second guessing and
overly emotional agonizing.
I dwell with fear and it with me.
I let New York steal my confidence and bravado.
I used to grab women by the wrist
pull them outside and
push them against the wall into passion and persuasion
before I even knew their names.

Perhaps a bad example but truth nonetheless.

A vicious cycle that persists, and persists.
Drink, sickness, sadness, drink, sickness, emptiness.

You wouldn't know it to talk to me.
But then I come home at night and type it
on a screen that prints it somewhere
no one will ever know a thing.

How brave I have become.
I hope that tomorrow delivers me.
I hope that I will save myself
before I become the things I hate.

Lost and desperately trying I grasp for straws.