“Mom, I’m not an idiot.”
She had been off her meds,
I could swear it.
The same nagging voice
As if I was a child,
“Jonathan David, I give you
money and the first thing
you buy is *****?”

What did she want,
An informal letter of my condition?

I apologized for having
a father as a drunk,
And a mother that took
more pills than she could stomach.

She hung up,
And I took another drink.