A fourteen year old borrows five bottles of his dad's daily beers, puts them back with ache at a brisk pace, and spends the night growing acquainted with an unfamiliar porcelain throne.
He wakes up with the bathroom spinning, and laughs with friends of friends about all that stuff he pretends not to remember (because that's what alcohol does, he's told).
And he does it again, and again
and one time he ends up alone
on the ground on a brisk autumn morning,
and he's moist and chills define his spine.
He goes home and still alone,
he lays on a bed that his parents bought.
Hours later, he wakes up to a glass of water and an advil that appeared on his nightstand, as if delivered by an angel.