If you all would just leave me alone
Just give me the bottles
You know you won’t drink them anyway
Let me lock myself away
To be drunk and maybe suffer a little less
I’ll promise not to die
I just.... I just really need to not be sober right now

Abide
by Michael R. Burch

after Philip Larkin's "Aubade"

It is hard to understand or accept mortality—
such an alien concept: not to be.
Perhaps unsettling enough to spawn religion,
or to scare mutant fish out of a primordial sea

boiling like goopy green tea in a kettle.
Perhaps a man should exhibit more mettle
than to admit such fear, denying Nirvana exists
simply because we are stuck here in such a fine fettle.

And so we abide . . .
even in life, staring out across that dark brink.
And if the thought of death makes your questioning heart sink,
it is best not to drink
(or, drinking, certainly not to think).

Originally published by Light. Keywords/Tags: Philip Larkin, Aubade, abide, death, mortality, religion, drink, drinking, drunk, alcohol, fettle, mettle, Nirvana

Every day I worked that nine to five.
*** of coffee every morning made me feel alive.
But by the end of the day, after dinner with the wife and kid,
the demons I kept away came back.
So I had a date with jack until the world went black.
For years, i suffered in silence.
I eventually turned to drugs
to try and escape the violence gifted by the tyrants.
But no matter how many times
I pushed the trigger and pulled the thread,
every time I came down I couldn't help feel i was better off dead. Just when I was ready to quit, that's when I met her. That was it.
I finally found someone who cared.
We got married and our son was born.
I had never been more scared.
But we survived. We pushed through.
Life was perfect until the fight we had when he was two.
We said some things we didn't mean
and i walked away again never to be seen.
I'm telling you this because it's too late for me.
But it's not too late for you.
If you feel like you're ready to face the end,
please let me say what i needed someone to say.
I love you, please stay.

I drink desperately
I take the bottle, the glass
And I pour.... and keep pouring
Because I’m running
I need to get away from myself
I want so far from my head
I drink fast and deep
I want to feel it now
Keep going to feel...
I just want alcohol in my veins
I don’t want to feel anything else
I wanna be dizzy
And just for once
I wanna be happy

Feeling so **** low
Sometimes I just want to go
Grab the wine and drink
Quit taking time to think
For just this day
I want to say
"I'm not okay."

Call me a sinner
I'll go out for dinner
Cry silent tears
Admit a few fears
Whilst so close
Yet so far away

Yearning for things I cannot have
Spirit in a halve
Things'll get better
Thinking about writing another letter
Then putting it in my drawer
Making me yearn things more.

- Jay M
March 7th, 2020

I'm going have moments
Moments when I think about you
What I do without you

I'm going have moments.
Without you and for long and long
Its midnight

I've got some loose change
Spent it on a last drink
Like it was a time past two

But what are the moments
When everything comes crashing down
Rolling around
Tuck underneath these sheets
Was it never enough?
Or was it just good enough

So think about it about it
For a moment
For I'm going to have moments
When I think about you .
I'd die laughing about you .

Give me another chance would you
You know you do
So think about it it
A moment
Might need a moment
To think about you.  Before I might just puke nope


This moment could be the last one
I spent with you
I'm glad id share with you my hope .
. my dreams my sweet sweet Tennessee she my beauty

And if I didn't have that moment
That moment
I'd be lost but I'm glad I found you
Whiskey

As a young man
I bought a bottle of aged bourbon
leaving it as a reminder
that celebration was near,
but it became my biggest failure
and my expectations flushed
down like brown bloodied bile.

I washed away nights of sin with gin
and begged mercy between breaths
but even then I had known I'd chosen less
as I dabbed my hands with lemon soap
I wrote a goodbye note 'Cheers
to the bottles I never broke open--'