I sit my backpack down on the university bathroom floor with a clink.
I pull my pants down so I blend in to the other collection of feet below the stall walls.
Balancing the large glass bottle between my thighs --
I pick up the unwieldy weight and strangle its neck - I lip it.
I pull in *****, no chaser, like the rappers do.
Throat-clenching cold, metallic liquid,

I try not to retch.
Humming represses the gag reflex.

My best friend asks me why my breath smells like alcohol.
It’s 12:30 on a Tuesday and I’m chewing gum.

I stumble home for miles after a party on the cuff of dark roadway with shooting star cars bulleting by.
I just want my bed.
I violently stick my ***** finger nail down my throat.
I feel much better.

A girl asks me what I was reading at a coffee shop.
I’m too hungover to keep a conversation going.

I fall asleep to the view of a crumbling mountain of beer cans beside my bed.

I take shots before having to make a phone call.

***** looks like water until you shake it.

A nerve pinching, vertebrae crushing chronic back pain sets in.
I drink to numb the pain.

Hidden bottles and cans lay under my my bed in my house back home in Saint Louis.
My dad pulls me aside and timidly tells me I have a weird, dead, look on my face at a family party.

A poem that doesn’t make sense when I read it in the morning.
Haywire words that might have been beautiful.

A google search.
Has anyone died from cirrhosis at the age of 20?

A body-wide rash that was the result of 1.75 liters of ***** over the course of a weekend.
The toxins seep from my pores.

The rest of the lines are whited out.