lol idk

Finishing your last last beer. Something you said for the 3rd time tonight. Look up to the sky, no answers found. Crumple to the ground, embrace the drain to swallow you whole. The most profound insight of your night was your bank card still fucking works. It survived the great wallet purge of this year. ATM at 711 to piss away on steel reserve and shitty beer. Something heavy, rock bottom to erase yourself, forcequitting disgraced loves and losses. Such horrible rotgut to a disgraced 2016. Make yourself sick. Another tallboy. Who gives a shit? Kneel. Vomit. Repeat. But refuse to admit defeat. For defeat is for those who keep drinking and remember where they landed beyond the puke on their maps and plucked shards from the last call crash.

Another late night adrift in the malt liquor river. Too frightful to let myself fade into whirs of bro bars and stupid fucking chodes drunk dialing for car service.. Open my notebook to take a stab at writing, let myself speak my mind. Allow myself chance a look thru the words and accompanying emotions I’ve grown to resent. Realizing I regretted more of what I let go but co-opted myself to playing dead on the high road instead. So I pointlessly twirl on this writer’s block hamster wheel. Choke this pen. Press to paper. Vulcan grip to squeeze these malevolent thoughts out of me. I go cold. The page remains blank. All I hate in myself won again. Hatedrink. Pretend I’m too wrecked to self-express. Depress myself upon knowing I was fucking worthless and without purpose.

Fall into a psychological wormhole that lasts weeks, or months…like who gives a fuck to count something that spans into hundreds of days and couple years of calendars? Circle the drain and start again…writing some shit about writing when you feel like you’re devoid of motivation and purpose to continue doing so. Also we are the collective drain, and we are the kind of shits that require multiple flushes.

I never quite know what to say anymore. Spending what’s left of my days staggering through passing phrases and hollow clichés I pissed all on so long ago. I feel the oncoming winter needling through my slacks. A reminder of nights to come as the wind chill and my morale plummet. Vagabond in my own hometown. Dicking around from dive bar to dive bar. And always a last, last drink away from figuring out whatever I’m trying to find. Yet I’m too far behind to ever catch up. So I down another round and keep losing ground. An expected fate for a life built on a river whose banks overflowed with cheap malt liquor, comically bad decisions, and a lack of grission.

You chose you at the end of the day. I dont blame you for it. I’d have chosen you too, for as much as I hate myself for admitting such. I’ve slit my own throat enough times with unattainable goals, wishful thinking and got drunk off the blood spilled from my sliced larynx. Hanging myself blue from wit’s end for the last time. Left hoarse from countless nights spent drunkenly cursing at the sky. Betrayed all remorse in the wake of burned bridges and severed relationships at my feet. Drinking myself fast past the point of finding a cause to live for because I can’t stand to stay standing anymore. 1% battery life’s all that saved me from drunk dialing suicide hotlines. I hope I’ve taken my last breath as I glare at this medicine bottle and the ‘ol 211. Old friend, 'ol faithful. You were there til the very end. My very end. Farewell. Just let me drown in Steel Reserve and sleeping pills. Steel Reserve and sleeping pills. Steel Reserve and sleeping pills. STEEL RESERVE AND SLEEPING PILLS.

Turning to the open road and the blur of highway signs to salvage refuge. Peace of mind listening to the hum of the bus and the highway moving under my feet. I grip the familiarity in unfamiliarity like best friends I haven’t seen in so long. Ignoring bloodshot eyes and cursing this fucking hangover for a bus across the state for your loving arms and a futon to devour us both. An idea hatched by too many beers and too little fucks to give. But these haphazard plans remind me that I live for my own impetuousness. Escaping onto a Megabus and down I-95 to drink all the Yards, to the mock surprise of of my better halves waiting to see me again. I come bearing gifts: Single malt scotch, Steel Reserve, or Wild Irish Rose. Or just me, a backpack, and my laundry list of flaws. A show of my appreciation for our friendship. From my heart to your shot glasses and koozies. Forever indebted to the kindness of all who dusted me off after 3am swan dives onto pavement; a wayward soul who always found wonder in where home shouldn’t be.

I’ll leave these last words unsaid. Not every end requires a final act. Losing sleep over lack of closure cemented the obvious. Distance as is its own conclusion. Resistance answers the questions we fail to ask ourselves when peaceful sleep lies beyond our grasp. What we have loved and held on to can never crash and burn if it never took flight in the first place. Conviction in the face of endless, futile contradiction solves fucking nothing as long as we ride that dead white horse into battle we already lost instead of saving ourselves.

We are bruised, we are beautiful. Flaws worn on rolled up sleeves like badges of honor. Fading scars, reminders of where we’ve been. Writhing in each other’s arms. Making peace with the skeletons in our closets. Finding the comfort to embrace the monsters under our beds. We’ve brought our demons to light to slay them one by one. That fire still burns in your eyes- A pyre to light our way through the darkness. Our sadness, nothing that snuggles couldn’t solve. Shared empathy; knowing we’re not alone in this journey. It’s enough to absolve us of the burden of never being perfect. Given the ability to forgive ourselves for lives lived off script. 300 miles, no sleep, and a shot in the dark. Finding it completely worthwhile to give us all we’ve got. Though we ended up passing like ships under a moonless sky, there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to forever hold on to memories of disappearing into your futon. And penning pretend narratives of broken down cars in parking lots. Spotting ourselves in its wreckage. No matter the distance, I carry your warmth through the coldest days. We are bruised, we are beautiful.