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

At this sushi joint,
she searched for the words
to describe her dinner.
‘It's heaven,’ she said, ‘Yes, heaven.’
Call me a simpleton, but divinity
on Earth is the sweet tinge of bourbon,
the smoke of an acid 60 gauge
that rolls over the tongue,
and the music of Pink Floyd
with the lights off.

-Ron Gavalik