B is for Beyond Bourbon

April is National Poetry Month. So, I give you...


Beyond Bourbon: A Poem of Love and Loss

After an evening of slurring and screaming and slapping and unprotected sex,
Bourbon and I agreed to an amicable divorce.

We did it for the children.

Our eldest, Vladmir, who was accidentally left out all night long to fend for himself.
Doc Grizzly, the middle, who didn't get his daily walk because mamma was hung.
The infant, Next Novel, who’s certain to be snatched by child welfare for failure to thrive.
And lest we forget little Liver, who has worked so hard night and day to keep us together even to his own detriment.

After twenty years, it is going to be hard to walk away.
I know nostalgia will try to override common sense,

And fill my mind with memories of all the good times.
The whorey, glory days,
Those halcyon years spent in a happy haze,
And, the bleary and cheery holidays...

Halloween on the gay party barge,
Dressed like Snow White and ready for a fight,
Saint Paddy's Day with a green beer chaser,
Christmas with me splayed the twinkling tree,
Amidst the wrapping scraps and turkey bones.
And the Easter egg hunts...
Bourbon always made the basket seem so much fuller.
I'll never forget the first time I met bourbon and tasted his timeless charms.

He was sitting on the bar at a Sig Ep party,
Red wax running down his thick neck.
Surrounded by adoring fans,
Laughing and lapping up his every word.

All the girls wanted him,
Most of the men too.

He indulged in his share of dalliances and one night stands,
But in the end those light-weights just couldn't hang.
Bourbon belonged to me.
And I had the proof....90 proof be exact...of his daily devotion.

Bourbon wooed and finally won me with intoxicating promises and extravagant gifts.

Bourbon gave me…
The audacity to blurt out exactly what I thought when I thought it to whoever was within earshot.
Bourbon gave me...
The balls to be the first on the dance floor and last one to leave the party.
And it was Bourbon who gave me ...
The guts to quit my job with a 401K to go write myself a story.
There, I go with the sloppy sentimentality. 

To keep from rushing back into bourbon's warm embrace,
I must bask in the bad times.

Like the night I slipped in my own vomit,
And cracked open the toilet bowel with my head.
The morning I awoke naked in a room full of strangers,
Wearing nothing but a Mardi Gras mask.
That long weekend when I got locked up,
And spent Memorial Day in the madhouse.

Lest I should again drown in his amber eyes and lush lies,
I'll force myself to linger on the losses...
Two husbands
Three jobs
Four days back in '98
And more expensive earrings, self-respect, and brain cells than I care to count.  

But our break-up has not made me bitter.
I still believe in true love.
Why, just the other night at this party,
I met this guy named Ghanga.
He was visiting from Jamaica.
He was so different from bourbon...
So much more mellow.

I know that rebound relationships don't usually last,
But I have a good feeling about this one.
Who knows...Ghanga could be my soul mate.
This could be forever. 

Welcome to my Words! I am attempting to complete the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge. Wish me luck and join me for your daily dose of Bourbonista madness.