Did you know there was an animal
that drank as much as you
in the corridor leading to
the barroom, waiting to see how much
you sucked down before you were
called away?

Did you know that the animal
felt awful afterward and collapsed
onto the red-painted floor
and nearly died, unlike you
who just kept drinking and drinking
as if the booze was water?

Did you know that after the animal
recovered it swore off the alcohol
and devoted its life to doing penance
for its deeds, unlike you
who continues to drink — more
moderately now, of course,

in deference to the whims
of social nonsense — but still
you continue to drink like a mouse,
like a snake, like some other animal
unlike the last one whose contrition
is worthy of sneers?

You don’t deserve their pity,
their hatred — you
are better than this. Don’t you know
it? The judgement rolls off of you
until the day it will not budge.
You will know that day is coming

when, after a long night of thought
about what they think, you turn back
in the cold of the morning and look back
on everything you’ve done till then
and you start to consider a change;
it may be late, but it will still be a change

even if it is too little, too late.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T