Why I Drink

I wake up to armies marching and battling inside my head.

It is all gunfire and dropping mortals,

Men ducking for their lives,

Commanding Officers yelling orders,

And dying men screaming out for their mamas,

It is the noise of a warzone in one hangovered man's head.

 

I wake up to the smell of a dirty crapper in my mouth.

Flies buzzing,

Maggots crawling all around,

Dirty socks, decomposed cadavers,

All that stench in one hangovered man's mouth.

 

I jump off the bed and rush to the toilet,

The first time of many today I am sure.

I pop open the lid and bend over with an open mouth,

And spill out my entire stomach lining.

As I kneel and hug the cistern,

I ask myself again for the millionth time this month,

"Dude, why do you drink?"

 

I can't put a finger on the exact reason why.

Maybe it is the kingly feeling i get,

When i wake up next to a strange woman in the morning.

Or maybe it is the rush I got last night when i first saw her at the bar.

Maybe it is the rush that comes with the hunting,

Or the fear that comes with being hunted.

 

Every bottle i pop open,

Brings me closer to the edge.

Edges me closer to vulnerability,

Yet the more i loose control of myself,

The more boldly i assert my presence in the world.

 

When i drink i can touch my childhood memories.

My head is like a slide show,

Where picture after picture of my happiest moments drift by,

Like an iMax movie unfolding right there;

Is that why i drink? To relive moments lapsed?

 

That is pathetic.

Maybe i drink to assert my sense of freedom in the world.

We live in a free country, so why not live it up?

Or maybe i just dance better when I am drunk.

Company comes easy,

The jokes roll right off the tongue,

And smoking doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

 

As I hug the cistern in my worst moment since last week,

I wonder why i keep doing this to myself.

Maybe i just like having a great story on Monday,

During lunch break when we exchange the

"How much did you get fucked up over the weekend?" stories

 

All I know is I'll hate myself in the morning for drinking too much last night,

But as soon as all the men in my head are dead and silent,

As soon as the officers stop yelling orders,

As soon as the .50 Cal runs out of bullets,

And the choppers run out of fuel,

And the war ends,

I'll find myself on the dancefloor with a bottle in one hand,

And a really bad idea in the other.

 

And when I wake up in the morning,

It'll be a battlefield in my head once more,

And the bad bad bad idea beside me,

And a scary feeling of villainous pride in heart.

And I'll reprimand myself for making so many mistakes,

And promise myself that i'll change

And as I puke my entire arlimentary canal down the crapper,

A voice inside me will keep whispering naughtily,

That the more things change,

The more they stay the same.

 

 

This poem is about: 
Me
My community
My country
Our world
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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