hits my system
and I shake

six days fermentation
aged for four years
in oak barrels

walks across my grave

I've distilled time
into a shiver

Whiskey
dark chocolate,
smooth jazz, and some gritty
poetry are all that I need
tonight

Bass and bourbon notes
Flutter down through my system
And I taste the sound.

I am small like a child,
wet face pressed
against a massive chest.

His arms crush me gently,
wrap me in a shroud
of sinew and bone

as the smell of bourbon
and musk fills my nostrils.
His breath feathers lightly

across the top of my head;
reassuring whispers
tickle my spine

and tell me
I am not wicked,
I am not a useless, hopeless thing.

I am perfect and flawed.
I am loved.
It is enough.

Bourbon whiskey
and dark chocolate
are tender injections
of love
for the people
who are not
in love

–Ron Gavalik

My heart has always been skeptical,
and sometimes I think that it's waiting.
waiting to go back to being hollow,
like that old church in Vienna,
after mass on a rainy day in October.

I stood outside in the garden:
extracted my rib,
ground it down on that stone,
shaping it into a knife
so that I could dig a small hole
to bury my treasonous heart.

You emerged into that dark wood,
and we found a path together
through moonlit streets and storms
until we came upon a tavern-
your laughter sloshing like
warm bourbon falling into a glass.

I'd watch you when you lost your self,
and I could see the fire burning in you
warming me, and in those lost moments
I didn't care at all that I might get burnt.

The taste of your bourbon sweet lips
in the backseat of my car
on a gravel road
that I haven't visited since high school...
If only we were driving a '91 Civic,
I would swear that I was 17 again.

That bartender poured my bourbon
and took an interest in my life.
'What's wrong, pal?
You can tell me.
I have all the answers.'
'Great,' I said. 'I don't know
any of the questions.'
For the rest of the night,
he left me with my typer
and silently refilled
the bourbon.

-Ron Gavalik