Content Warning: Mention of sex, alcoholism, breakups
My feet have flattened from
20 months of rarely wearing shoes
When I go back to the office
will my cells reconfigure to
the shape of confinement
Will yours
be freed up
for three beer lunches
and (un)happy hours
Will we argue again about
whether a brewery is a bar
Will you dial up familiar
euphemisms for I’m drinking again:
Out of range
On a call
No service
Battery dead
Ringer off
You are breaking up
I think we disconnected
I can’t hear you
This is not a love story
It’s not a fairy tale
I could say there is no happy ending
but I don’t know yet
This is not girl meets girl
There is no hero
No princess
No knight
There is armor, though
And swords for words
There is shame and
kissing
Lots of kissing
And sex for days
And not for days
There is no rainbow-themed
wedding cake
No handwritten vows
There is no clean time
No 24-hour chip
No sober anniversary
There is fragile
And how could you do this to me?
There is personal space the size of a gymnasium
where high school basketball is played
There is love
And the opposite of love
And I can’t do this anymore
There is this time will be different
And alphabet soup, round-robin, roll the dice
self-help
AA/NA/ACOA/Al-anon
say it the same -
There is nothing you can do to make her stop drinking