Drunk-Sitting

I know that this isn’t typical blog style, submitting poetry where a story ought to be, but after a long weekend of “drunk-sitting,” I feel that this poem best encompasses my experience. Let the record show that I do not disapprove of social drinking. However, it was unsettling to watch some of the brightest young minds I know lessen their intelligence and awareness levels to that of my grandfather’s when he was riddled with Alzheimer’s. All I could do was support them and pray, but at the end of the night I needed a way to console myself. That’s what this poem accomplished. It brought me great comfort to put this experience down in words.

Catching water with an open palm

Would surely be simpler

Than herding intoxicated friends

From out-ward leading doors

And the jutting corners of dorm furniture.

Tears, crocodile and

Genuine shoot from

Squinting wide eyes

As the sober try to console the

Lost children, who cannot hide from the

Demons under their standard-issue mattresses

Anymore.

In a room with no Light,

Time slips into the frothing shadows.

Ashamed too.

Incandescent bulbs spill beer brown over the

Locked dorm room

Sentries interrogate all who pass by their

Wooden gate.

As if the worn door with a

Push-in lock will protect them from

Discovery.

Lips touch. Hands touch.

Sloppy laughter splashes and churns.

Even while sitting they

Kowtow unevenly.

Sloshing the Courage inside, making sure it

Fills every crevice.

They feel it closes the holes and makes them

Whole.

But that is like saying the ocean’s caress

Sharpens stray glass, rather than sanding it down into

Nothing.

Fed up, the babysitters

Escape to a room

Better lit and embrace each other.

Being the support their

Friends seek in bottles.

But happiness can’t be bottled, and

Bottles don’t bring happiness.

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