True Story of Alcoholic Tenacity. by Heath Brougher

Back in the day [aka high school—9th grade to be exact]

before I could stroll into a bar or liquor store

and shop till my wallet was empty,

I once bought a fifth of Canadian whiskey while at school.

The transaction occurred in the bathroom

right before the 1st bell rang for the 1st class of the day.

I kept the bottle wrapped up in the brown paper bag

in which it came, stuffed snugly into the corner of my other bag—

the one for my books! Everything was going fine

until the 3rd class of the day. I began to smell the distinct odor

of whiskey emanating from my bookbag.

It turns out the top of the plastic lid

had popped off of the rest of the securely screwed on lid (remember,

this was cheap high school whiskey—very low grade, even the bottle),

leaving me with a flat-out open bottle of whiskey in my bookbag.

Instead of panicking like most and ditching the bottle in the trash,

I soldiered on, deftly walking the halls while carrying a concealed

bottle of whiskey without a lid on it for the next 5 classes.

I cradled it closely as I kept it perfectly balanced in my bag, 

and, smelling as if I were wearing Whiskey Cologne,

made it to the end of the day without any teacher or tattletale student

noticing the smell. It wasn’t until I finally got home

that I realized I could have at least stuffed some paper towels down the bottle’s neck.

After what I went through to get it, I cherished that bottle!

The next weekend included a Christmas break.

I would stay up deep into night taking shot after shot, listening to music, writing,

until the well-deserved whiskey would lull me into a warm, peaceful, and drunken sleep.

If you ask me, I would say that I more than earned those moments of alcoholic bliss.

Heath Brougher is the co-poetry editor of Into the Void Magazine, winner of the 2017 and 2018 Saboteur Award for Best Magazine. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award Nominee. He published two chapbooks in 2017 and two full lengths in 2018. His most recent book is The Ethnophere's Duality (Cyberwit.Net 2018) and he has two full-length collections forthcoming in 2019.