The Alcoholic

To anyone, who’s lost a loved one to drinking To anyone, who can identify fifteen different mixes of alcohol Without even tasting them To anyone, who can tell a drunken swagger From someone who’s sitting This is for you To anyone, who’s forced a smile Because you knew how it would end if you didn’t To anyone who, late at night, swore to every deity you could think of You’d never turn out like them This is for you To every brother or sister, who’ve had to explain to their little sibling Why daddy doesn’t mean what he says To every child, who watched his or her mother Turn their back on them This is for you To anyone, who has ever sat up all night crying Begging tomorrow not to come To anyone, who knows what it’s like To be one inch from dying This is for you To everyone, who’s had to wear long sleeves to school In June To everyone, who’s had to scrub bile off the hallway walls Cause he was too drunk to do it himself This is for you To anyone, who has heard the same apology speech fifty times And still tries to believe it To anyone, who can walk into their kitchen And pull out nine different brands of alcohol This is for you To anyone, who knows the nauseating feeling From the mere smell of liquor Or Brandy Or Scotch This is for you To my sister, who ran away at sixteen; and seventeen; Then left again at eighteen To my brother, who will have this to worry about alone After I’m gone This is for you To my friend, whose dad drinks away their mortgage And keeps them in poverty To my cousin, whose father used her as a punching bag Until he was sent to rehab for bar fights This is for you To everyone who has ever dealt with the consequences of alcohol they did not consume This is for me This is for them This is for you