How you would have loved me as a drunk
Elisabeth Horan
For J.D.
Just came from the lab. Won't know test results till tomorrow. Where were you, by the
way, when I thought I had given myself hepatitis C; sure I was dying, killing myself,
so excruciatingly slowly. Where were you, my friend - when I did myself in. Lost my
jobs, all my friends. Coulda helped me with my clumsy bottle holding, coulda lifted
this drunken girl off her face. Coulda made the coffee, even cleaned up the place. You
wouldn't have left me like the others did. Even if I made you cry; made you listen as
a finished a magnum, singing like a maniac to Air Supply. You would have sucked the
venom out until I survived the night, till I dried up, and out, bitter attempts at sobriety;
held me as baby, loved me like wife; wiped my cheeks as often as pain destroys lives - as
I cried about the losing I was doing, the yellow eyes, the fatty liver, my power, my life,
washing down the cresting river. How you would have loved me as a drunk. I was funny
until I guess I wasn't; beautiful until the makeup wore thin, as vulnerable as a poet's
pen. I wish you had held me up back then. I wish you had been my (hu)man, to hold my
hand when the test comes in.
I'm crying now - can you feel this pain I've buried, echoing within?
Cauldron Anthology
9