I drink whiskey because of you
It is how we pass the time between stories
Of how if you were a good girlfriend
You would have stopped him from pulling the trigger
It always ends with your tears
I wait for them
I can see poetry in your pain
And think
What a monster lies within me
You imagine yourself a spinster someday
And have already accepted the solitude
So you clutch a plastic gallon of Seagrams til you pass out
It would surely break if it were glass
You should get a cat
It seems like you are waiting for our forgiveness
But we don’t know what there is to forgive you for
So you think everyone blames you
I tell you
It’s not your fault
But I don’t know who you’ll blame if you believe me
Your daughter is still a child but she seems much older
I can tell it comes from you her mother
You are tethered to an age still out of your reach
You are only two years older than me
But you wear forty years of whiskey behind your ears and on your wrists
You smell of aging
Of Pandora trying to close the box
You smell of infection
Perhaps it is grapes fermenting
You smell of wooden barrels
And confuse them with caskets
The man at the liquor store still gets your name wrong
So I think there is time
I am not sure for what
