little lights

XX

My drunkenness is illegal, and it sits low in my stomach like the condensation of a glass of cool  hard lemonade, sticky sweet and sugary, but it is followed by a crash that I cannot bear to think of and it catches up to me too quickly with high metabolism as a blessing and a curse

My drunkenness is a secret like a can of beer smuggled in the kangaroo pouch of an oversized hooded sweatshirt three shoved into a back pack and rushed down into a basement that smells like weed and Teenage Boy, potent and present and overwhelming

I am a promiscuous drunk, spreading my newly teenage love to anyone that will take it, and I will attach my lips to anything with a pulse, too needy and inebriated to bother with the lump of liquor on the back of my throat, wet and thick and nagging at me like it wishes it were dead. I cannot relate

My drunkenness comes and goes in waves of coherence, flashes of my mom is going to kill me and kiss me until my knees give out and my eyes cross, it will battle with my anxieties and fears until one or the other wins out for half an hour. I will drink water until I decided to be drunk again and switch back to beers

I was once drunk off wine, head rested back against the comfortable cushions at an adult party with another teenage boy whose parents dragged him along, I was sipping slowly alone and I was kissing quickly with the company, but all the while I was utterly drunk, tipped over the scales long before he'd arrived at my side, and long before he kissed me hard on the mouth

Three months later, and each Friday night meant two beers in his basement, kissing until I feared we'd do something more, and playing video games until I crashed in his sister's room, but there was no innocence and there was all tipsy fear, my mom is going to kill me and kiss me until my knees give out and my eyes cross 

But breaking up hurts even more than a hangover, fewer than a couple dozen years under my belt, and heartache is an all too familiar feeling-- how do you get used to a hangover before you get used to disappointment? I knew I'd been growing up in the wrong order, but when drinking beer at a party was expected and kissing someone other than him was suddenly a fathomable concept... my drunkenness is illegal and painful