It’s Because of What You Forget

When the taste of puke is still fresh in your mouth
the desire for a drink diminishes.
But sooner or later the memory of your body sprawled, dazed,
across a bathroom floor over the toilet bowl,
fades.
The beer ads beckon,
the champagne commercials coerce the mind.

You think about the upcoming holidays and
wonder how you will bear not having at least
one glass of something at Thanksgiving dinner
(you forget that it would, could, never be one)
Flashes of summer barbecues and hot beach days
blind you even in November,
when you suddenly remember
you cannot have a beer or two or three,
you cannot come in from a sweaty day of yard work
to an icy Corona waiting for you in the freezer.

Yeah, sooner or later it’s the memories;
the memories of the taste, the ambience,
the candlelight and shimmering crystal
that drive you crazy.
It’s all your cells remembering how they feel
buzzing, mellow, horny, aching,
on the brink of a great discovery (or so you think);
the lying hum that manages to sing you into believing
that you’ll keep feeling good if you keep drinking.

Even when the truth slams you
with the first wretch and volley in your stomach,
the first blink of un-remembering;
even as the all-consuming desire for sleep
sweeps over you and you wish everyone would go home
and you could just go to bed, even then
you still don’t get it.
You don’t get it that
you have just magnanimously
and quite voluntarily
poisoned yourself.

Even the next day, which you have already lost
to headaches and throat aches and more vomiting,
you still don’t quite understand that
you are slowly, deliberately? murdering your body and
along with it, your soul.

Yeah, it’s because of what you forget
that makes what you remember
so wonderfully memorable.

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Mary Diane Hausman | Website Designed and Maintained by Web Design Relief