Moments of Clarity

once in a while—sometimes, several weeks in a row—all you
need is to hunker down with a bottle of bourbon and some cigarettes.
you can be exhausted, melancholy, dying from within, but
after a few lowballs you start feeling better; several lowballs
later, you’re elated, woken up, ready to conquer the world.
then, you crash and pass out but it’s alright, for there was
a small period there between three and five in the morning
you felt more alive than ever before. you wake up
in Hell—throbbing head, pulsating heart, aching limbs,
dried up vomit on your shirt and on the pillow—but
you know where the leftover bottles are and the
blurry memories of being alive push you out
of bed and into filling another lowball.