My momma always warned me
She’d say
“Baby doll liquor runs through our veins”
I was making a family tree for health class last week and a third of the people hanging from the branches had beer bottles clinking next to them.
My grandfather’s favorite hobby was downing a bottle of jack and carrying out the cliché tradition of beating his wife and kids
Just like his father did.
My dad learned from this vowing never to forget what alcohol did too his family
My uncle he drinks just trying to forget.
My mother has a similar background
She remembers riding into town with my grandma to buy her granddaddy’s medicine
It was only until she was older she realized the pharmacy was an ABC
The “medicine” cheap whiskey
As the elixir slid down my great grandfathers throat it trickled into the workings of our tree
Infecting its core
Yeah my parents would always warn me
Against the dangers of alcohol
Don’t drink the punch at parties
Don’t be like your uncles
Don’t end up like your aunts
But what they failed to tell me was depression runs through our veins too
They taught me how to ward off being a drunkard
But never told me to stay away from the dark spaces in my mind
They never taught me what to do about the numbness
And in my house people are more ashamed
Of going to therapy than alcoholics anonymous.
How do you protect yourself from something already inside you?
You see those relatives of mine
They were doctors
Preforming at home blood transfusions
Replacing the bad blood with good beer
The dark thoughts with white wine
Until the depression swimming through them was too drunk to see straight
We nurture our family tree with PBR and Prozac
Helping the roots twist and grow so they can grasp for the younger generation dangling from the lower limbs and I mean
Hey we all need something to make the feelings go away
And they say alcohol’s not the answer
But it sure as hell makes you forget the question
We all need something to forget the questions
And Like my kin I picked my poison
Because I felt it
The liquor in my veins I felt it
getting warmer
Hotter
Hot
This liquid in my veins it gets too hot.
I’m slitting my wrist to poor myself another shot
It’s not what it looks like momma
I just wanna feel that buzz and my blood is all I got
I picked my poison
I’m like my uncles
A crude copy of my aunts
I’m an addict
Just not an alcoholic