me

The desire to drink is strong tonight. Sometimes, it’s there. Sometimes it’s not there.

That urge to just down 12 beers and feel sorry for myself. It’s quite sad, really. Yet, I don’t do much to stop it from creeping into my mind. It used to dominate it like a professional wrestler. Just toy with you all day at work. Make you think about it. Want it. It consumes you until you consume it.

A few years ago, the productive times some would say, although all evidence of said productivity is in a landfill in Pitt County, North Carolina, it was an every night occurrence. The drinking was. Not the productivity.

I guess I was more in tune with my thoughts then. They were clearer, for sure. Closer. Now, there’s perspective. And other moments dumped on top of it. Blurring the memories forever.

Time heals all wounds they tell you. I don’t believe it. Never really have. It dulls them, for sure. Maybe, I am wrong though. It does heal, if you live long enough. Yeah, there are some ugly-ass scars. And those scars can become wounds pretty easily again. Just ask any punchy boxer. That first punch will just open it right on up. But the pain isn’t the same the second time around. And by the 10th or so time, the pain really just doesn’t exist. Your tolerance by then has been built up. Much like drinking. What used to be a cheap, short-term endeavor, is now a long, drawn-out affair.

Drown the pain.

Looking at some old photos of that time, I noticed a glimmer of hope in my eyes. It could have been the company I was keeping. Or maybe the booze itself. But it’s there, nonetheless. Staring back at me. Mocking me. Or maybe telling me, hey, you can get there again.

But I also know what happened most of those nights after the photos were taken. I’d stumble home, walking the mile to my one bedroom apartment. I’d get inside and go to my single mattress on a portable box spring. The thing taken from the house in Greenville that we shared. It was there when we moved in. I took it so I’d have a place to sleep when I moved out.

And I’d cry.

That’s what I did most nights. From March of 2006 until December of 2007. A little break from January of ‘08 until August the same year. Then the epic fall. The revelation. The purge. And the recovery. Sort of. I guess.

Now, here I am four and a half years later, still thinking about it every, single, God damn day.

And I want a drink.

Luckily? I can’t afford it anymore.

Numbing myself isn’t an option anymore. Heck, I could afford it better when I was unemployed and had a barstoolery partner. Now I have myself. My mind. My music and whatever nonsense I download from the intrawebs. And even there, my past mocks me. Laughs at me. The movie Red, for instance. First of all, the name of it. Has nothing to do with what I associate it with, but it does because my mind makes it so.

Then the hotel, The Capri, is there. Right next to Nick’s. Which isn’t really there anymore. Heck, the brick, sliver of window glass and piece of wood I have may be the only remnants of the place, the actual place. Yeah, they took signs and such from inside. But this is the actual core of it. The skeleton.

And it makes me want to imbibe. To kiss the bottle. Whiskey it up.

I won’t. The appeal is there. The desire is there. But the energy isn’t. The vigor. The impetus.

So, instead I try to write. Usually, I succeed only in word count. Most of it is drivel. I can’t focus on a story long enough to make it decent. The words are thrown up here to be laughed at. Or understood. Maybe internalized.

None of that is supposed to be the point.

It’s supposed to be about me. And that’s the problem. Always has been. I don’t empathize. I know when it should happen. Heck, I tell myself that. Yet, it seems to no happen. Or maybe it does, I just don’t recognize it.

Like the person I see in the mirror nowadays. He wants a drink. He wants me to sit in front of a pad, with my pen and scribble words. He knows I will do it some days, but not every day.

And until I’m that guy in the mirror, I’ll just be me.