I like drinking, I really do.
I know that it worries you.

My grandfather is an alcoholic,
and so is my father.
I'm not one,
but every girl is a little bit like her father.
For me, it's a little more than a bit.

He's a quiet man, absent, tortured.
He likes red wine, Crown on the rocks,
and making people laugh.
He hates his job
and himself.
I would say that these things aren't true for me,
but then I'd be lying.

My father and I
order the same things at restaurants,
laugh at each other's jokes,
and like Hemingway more than most.

I'll drink anything,
just like my father.
Whiskey, *****, beer, schnapps,
well, anything besides tequila...
Christmas break two years ago was a rough time.

I really wish you wouldn't worry about my drinking.
You see, people don't usually worry about me.
I was raised by a single mother
who didn't even have time to make dinner,
much less worry about me,
the middle child.
My father wasn't usually around,
but I guess our similarities are genetic.

I guess I'm kind of scared
that you care so much
because then I actually have someone
to impress,
someone to make proud.

To make my father proud
is to like the same kind of beer as him.

I haven't quite figured out, yet, how to make you proud.

She hated the world.
She hated the sunshine, she hated the moon.
She hated that flickering lamp in her dingy bedroom.
And most of all she hated the way that she hated herself.

At night she would try to run,
but her fears would take over.
She would climb out of her window
into the darkness.

She wandered the streets with her hands in her pockets
and her mind outside her head.
She stayed away from the beam of the streetlights,
afraid the world would see her.

She let her beat up black high tops lead the way
as she roamed the desolate streets.
The cool night air would ruffle her midnight black hair,
and the only thing heard was the shuffling of her feet on the pavement.

Her black high tops would turn on different streets every night,
but always end up at the same place-
the bridge overlooking the train tracks,
a place where it's noisy and peaceful all at once.

She would pull out a cheap plastic cigarette lighter
and burn her carefully written poems,
written on carefully folded paper.
She would watch as the glowing paper drifted down towards the tracks.

She would turn away,
once again following her high top sneakers.
She would look up at the sky, disgusted by the bright stars
but even more disgusted by herself- the midnight girl.

I always talk about how one day
I'll submit a short story to the New Yorker.

I tell people that I'm “working on a novel”
and that “I'll let you read it when I'm done.”

In reality,
I'll never finish the novel.
I'll never finish any of the ten novels
that I've started.

If I do finish,
I'll never let them read it
because it isn't good enough.

I'll never submit my short story
to the New Yorker
because they wouldn't want it.

Never mind that I've read every issue
of their magazine
dreaming of being a part of it
even a small part.
I wouldn't even need my name in it.
I just want to be in it because
everything they publish
is beautiful.

I'd love to finish a novel
but I lose hope
in my characters before they can even
breathe a single breath.

If only I believed in my characters
as much as my friends and family believed in me.
Then maybe, just maybe
I could finish something.

I guess I finished this ****** poem,
but that doesn't count because
it's more of a stream of consciousness
than a real piece of literature.

Am I a true writer
if I can't put my love
for the moon
into
words?

The world I inhabited
was speckled with eyes-
malicious eyes, watching my every move-
it was a terrifying place.

I could feel that everything
was alive around me.
Everything had a heartbeat
and everything breathed its hot breath on me.

I wanted to hide
but the eyes were everywhere.
They were on buildings,
ingrained in trees,
peering through every *****, city window.

I ran as far as I could
until there was no where else to run.
I was as close to the sky as possible,
feeling the world's musty breath
rake through my hair.

The sky was dark and gray
and the clouds glared at me angrily,
wondering why I would venture so close to their territory.
I tried to tell them
that it was my last option,
there was no where else to run,
but they wouldn't listen.

Bumps
formed on my pale skin.
Goosebumps.
The dark clouds were pushed away by a cool breeze.
The sky cleared,
showing its bright blue face.
The only clouds left
were white and puffy.
They had faces,
but they were smiling at me.

I inspected the clouds closely.
Within each cloud were multiple faces-
they were the faces of every god, every deity, every spirit-
that ever was.
They smiled at me
and I felt my face forming a small grin.

I could feel the walls around me breathing,
I could see them inhaling and exhaling.
They were surrounding me,
protecting me like a father.
I glanced at the buildings that dotted the sky.
They smiled at me, too.

I could feel everything in the world around me
releasing feelings
and asking for me to do the same.
The eyes looked at me encouragingly,
coaxing me to join the world.

I breathed a deep breath,
in and out,
and felt the world do the same.

I always stared at the sky
like I was looking at something familiar.
The shiny moon
always seemed to be looking back at me,
telling me that the night wasn't so scary
after all.

The moon was my first love.
Its light draped upon me like a worn quilt,
keeping the darkness away from my delicate body.
It knew my secrets
without me telling it.

A boy came along,
he was bright like the sun.
He was all I could see.
I told him my secrets and I thought he understood.

When I looked at the moon,
I could see a reflection of the world.
When the boy looked at the moon,
all he saw was a place under which
to kiss me.

The moon was my first love,
the boy was my second.
When his eyes rested upon my first love,
they didn't understand.
He continued to kiss me,
and night never seemed to come.

When the boy was finally gone,
the night was darker than it had ever been.
I couldn't bring myself to look at the moon
and the darkness consumed me.

I finally looked up
and saw the moon gazing down at me,
telling me that everything was alright.
And it was.
Everything was always alright in the moonlight.

It's a 2 am cigarette,
a late night walk,
you, alone with the moonlight.

You feel something romantic
in the self-loathing
that only seems to appear under the
brightest moon.

The ghostly cigarette smoke drifts
as the only filter
between you
and the moon.

It's the feeling of every slight stumble
you make as your foot catches
on the uneven sidewalk
and you don't know whether it's
the alcohol
or the darkness making you stumble.

The remote beauty
found only in your own
deepest version of hell,
the loneliness under the moonlight,
serves as the view in front of your
eyes,
red from tears.

Your heart
is colder than the cloudless night,
the only warmth you can feel
is through your fingertips,
gently holding the burning-down cigarette.

The red cigarette ****
lands near your feet,
the only light
besides the bright, cold moon.

The light shining down from the moon
is as pure
as the loneliness.
It's just you
and the night.

You take another drag,
and keep walking.