I always saw you on my horizon.
I went to meetings and confessed
helplessness and drank bland coffee
and ate stale donuts and smoked
an endless chain of cigarettes.
I walked twelve steps in your shoes.

I missed my family and relapsed.
They kept my bar stool for me and
I drank to our health and you.
I'll see you in my dreams hidden in
liquor's fog. Will I ever know normal?
Maybe when I've had a hair of the dog.