sea legs and empty hands

(content warning for alcohol abuse)

a man walks into a bar. people laugh at dependency like
it’s in on the joke. isn’t it? aren’t we. I am the laugh lines 
of my father above pools of whiskey-tinted blood, wars
waged for decades against drinks that drowned fists. 
we’re all tired in one way or another. I’m exhausted
drool on my chin from nights spent by the TV trying 
to drown out the noise. family trees hover and haunt
like hangovers, gin halos buzzing behind the glow of sins
I committed before last call. before the last call we got from 
him, the last call about him. the bottle by the bed, his body
and the floor one woven masterpiece. a decimal and a 
hat trick for a BAC. two daughters. two daughters 

I remember relatives who carried their sickness 
the way I carry memories the way they ran from theirs
 
I want to help. I want to turn from everything they are. 
everything I am. my aunt’s ribs, her bloated stomach
moving with a heavy life shallowed. things I didn’t see 
because peace wasn’t a hand I was willing to shake. maybe
clichés are really clutches, bad jokes just lies we tell ourselves
to remember what it feels like to laugh. I keep running back to 
them and other things: nights spent on the other side of the door, 
forehead pressed to the wood kissing your palm. fingers clawing 
at any part of you that will keep me afloat. I’ve built boats 
from the wreckage. I’m split driftwood on shorelines. 
there are holes in me everywhere

a man walks into a bar—all sea legs, all empty hands. in my 
head, he walks back out.

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