The barista doesn’t look
you in eye anymore.

You’re wearing that blue checkered
romper from the night before,
the one that leaves little
to the imagination
of the scholarly humans,
all up before the ripe time of 10.

And now it’s noon
and you’ve slept through
3 phone calls and you’re not even sure
if you’re bank account will allow
for the $2 iced coffee
you’re about to **** down.

But you buy
all the overpriced
caffeine anyway,
because today’s a new day
and if you stop moving
you might notice the wound,
and the pain,
and start to bleed,
and realize its going to make
a mess so maybe
its time for an Irish exit
and leave.

The town still drips
with last nights alcohol consumption,
effervescent with AWOL brain cells.
Romance viewed from the inside of a glass,
vanished in its absence.
Neon bar signs became the stargazing
of the twenty-first century
and hangovers a fast burning cigarette,
leaving romance to pile
in a duotone of grey
in the ashtray of our heartless society.

I Disappear in the crowd of dancing people
The music is loud while I walk through the corridor
I am outside now, the first breath of fresh air for hours
My legs are hurt and my head are dancing with stars
I walk without saying goodbye, I just walk
I stand so sleepy watching the turn of the street lights
The sunrise in the horizon and I'm waking
My body has recovered but my head still hurts
but it's different from last night, cuz today
My phone rang and I got social hangovers

I drink wine before water
It’s better than beer.
Neither are like *****
They’re nowhere near.
Like beer, you can
Drink all of it you please.
It will never knock
Your life to its knees.

What? You say no?
You say they are equal?
This is a bad movie
I don’t want a sequel.
I have lived my whole life
Thinking wine is okay
And not contributing to
Alcoholism in any way.

I thought I could drink it
And party like a king
And the specter of addiction
Didn’t mean a thing.
Yes, I admit I ignored
Those drunks and hangovers
That woke me up feeling
I’d been hit by a Range Rover.

So, okay, maybe it’s real
This threat to sobriety
That is so accepted
And approved by society.
But now I have to find
A new way to celebrate
That won’t ruin my life
At some not too distant date.

It takes a lot more than a month and two pounds of **** to get over someone you really had feelings for.

I thought I've felt love,
but in reality the only love
I've known is the soft kisses
the bottle of alcohol has left
against my dry lips and
the sheets that hold my
tired and lonesome body at night.
The morning hangovers
remind me I'm the boy
who is destined to be
alone.
-o.b

When she'd kissed more bottles than she had boys
And spent more nights in strange bars than her own bed
She came to the conclusion that heart break hurt worse than a hangover

There is a
Threat
Outside of bed.
Beyond amber red
Sunsets
People of the night
Come out.
Awaken by the smell
Of repugnant restrooms
And *****.
Last memory of
The inside of
A toilet.
Brought alive by
the frightening
sunrise.
Blinding all
who hid.

He threw caution into his red cup.
He named his drink the forget-me-not.
This would be the night of remembrance.
One-fourth Sprite and three-fourths *****.
The crisp wind greeted him as he stepped outside.

He charged into the night.
Forget-me-not.
He babbled with his friends.
Forgt-me-not.
He took another sip.
Forgt-me-nit.
He danced with a girl.
Firgtn-e-nit.
He drank every drop of his forget-me-not.
fIrgtne-nit


He went till the break of dawn only to be swept up by the wind.
The next day he woke up with saliva crust down the side of his mouth.
He had forgotten.
The night forgot him.

no one is around
i walk down the streets of a vacant wasteland
forgotten, discarded, tattered
red cups drag across asphalt
with no force pushing them but the
tired alcohol stained breath of the wind.
this beautiful sunday morning-tainted
by the drunken cheers of last night
the life-poured, guzzled, shot
out of this place
death hangs over the streets while a
drunken hibernation swallows my
"highly esteemed" peers.
shattered glass cracks beneath
my feet as i follow the pathway
to my house; to my successes
this place…
this is home.