walking out the door to score the first pour
or headed to the store to buy more, more, more
alcohol slides over my lips and burns my gums
look out depression because here I come
unforgivable and dumb
my decision in choosing again to succumb
to filling my throat with hateful *** just to go numb

unbelievable the cost of the lines I’ve crossed
the hours and days I've lost
the vicious shifting of minutes across
the abacus rods to the side of loss
the moments of my life I accost

my happy endings sent marching to their deaths
an insult to the true preciousness
of every one of life’s next breaths

I stop and think of all the terrible acts and hate crimes
that I've committed since the addiction in my lifetime
my steady, self inflicted decline
and the horrors that have come from my anebriated mind
the sickness embodied in drinking, thinking it’s not filth and grime

one of life's few real truths
is that we have so little of it in our youth
we have so little of it to define ourselves
it doesn’t halt, it doesn’t pause it can’t be contained or stored on shelves
it will never refrain from moving along
with or without your happiness time moves on

writing this down in sobriety now
or reading this later aloud
drunk and probably too loud
for a crowd of one person not proud
I’ll wonder how
how I do this to myself again and bow down
to a voluntary disease that only brings storm clouds

I've been taught better than this
I've been treated better than this
I've been shown and really seen clearly my life’s gifts
so why do my actions always need forgiveness

how is it I burn the pages of my own plans
how is my touch capable of the murders of a killers hands
I don’t know how an able body like mine can
refuse to stand up like a man

I’m dragging myself to an inevitable end
with every sip I take and every bar dollar I spend
and every gushing wound I refuse to mend
everytime I choose ***** over the company of a friend

i can put the vitamins back in my body
and pretend my ledger isn’t red it’s just a little spotty
and that I wasn’t that bad I was just a little naughty
and say that I make everyone laugh when I’m *****

but those rows of abacus beads on the wrong side that I tossed
tell a different story of a war fought and lost
and a power that remains with the victor unchanged
and a coward carrying a bottle like a cross

and every day there is a line drawn, and then right now is gone
with or without my happiness, time moves on