I wanted to thank everyone for the discussion and advice surrounding my poem
on alcoholism. I have redrafted and read it on Monday at the Troubadour in
London. It seemed to go down well so I thought I'd share its reincarnation.
The Drink
It was absent in my house:
red wine, white, baileys, whiskey, six packs.
No one had beer at the end of a hot summer work week
or snuck something in their coffee mid-afternoon.
My grandpa was a mean drunk way before I met him,
before he became the man who slipped me
fivers for candy, played cards late into the night,
sat me on his lap to show me how the world worked
as he dieted on his new habits of coffee and cigarettes
and KFC family bucket meals - the ones we expected
every time he came round to visit, while my mom hovered,
making peace by fetching and cleaning and keeping quiet.
Before me, my grandpa was best at blame, the strong
silent type that didn't talk about his army demotion,
or why my Grandma couldn't speak "Goddamn German
in front of his Goddamn children," or why he slipped
vodka into his morning coffees and continued slipping
until the day was done and at least one of his kids
had a bloody nose and at least one of his kids was in a closet
or under the bed so he wouldn't find them.
So alcohol didn't exist in our family beyond that shadow;
a past we're never supposed to talk about. Our breed
don't talk about things. There's no alcoholics amongst us.
We're just another set of normal people.
But when you're lying naked in a bed in a hotel room with strangers,
and your doctor says you're killing yourself, and your friends
marvel that you make it through the day after the night before,
and your blackout turns to morning with your truck on the lawn
and your keys in your hand, and every pub in a 5 mile radius
knows your poison & your new best mates are wearing grooves in bar stools -
Is that proof enough?
My Grandpa was a mean drunk. He drank to cope.
My friends to cope, my uncles to cope, me to cope.
And forget. And forget. And forget. Until we all
forgot and drank another. A sweet release down the throat.
My Grandpa was a mean drunk. He drank to cope.
But we don't talk about that anymore.
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