when alone..lone..lonely..lo..
loneliness echoes, but
a drink or two or more's the salve
i'll have a beer, red wine, spirits to raise the dead
or string me up to the rafters,
i'll take what i can get.
the first cool mouthful incites urgency
down there, a tingling that feels like desire.
Now i write with abandon,
after all i have been abandoned
oh, drink brings out the narcissism best
woe is me, why oh why me oh my
i talk of things that shock and you squirm
i'm that drunk for whom you feel neither pity nor affection -
isn't contempt all we ever have for others,
when not for ourselves?
alone again - still - with a sorry excuse for a friend,
drowning, tiny, swimming, flailing foolishly in the bottle
like a patient whose operation has gone terribly wrong,
screaming, in a tone more muddled than rage,
what is this botched life worth
and why do we hear only our own echoes