Love Drunk by Lorretta Jessop

Drank you up, despite of age
obsessed with the rough surface,
lively currents,
hidden depths. Your life,
merged with mine
saltwater meeting fresh.
Whirlwind love, meeting by chance
at a bar, seemed fated.
Funny,
I feared you’d see me
as a shark
of constant devotion, but I see now
the drink
is eating you
and I’m drowning;
drunk for months
staying by your side.

Hair of the dog
keeps your black dog at bay. Pinot taken
each day
as a pill; stressed, suppress –   
possessed.
Each insidious bottle
empties 
leaving gritty residue. 
Proseccco bubbles are the morning’s
glory-less aspirin. Double-barrelled shots
hit between the eyes;
turn you from
Romeo to Hyde – 
not that you’d remember.

A black stool cries
internal bleeding but you still
stake your claim
at the bar, as if it were
your very own wedge
of waterfront sanctuary; 
unaware your skin reeks
of bar-mat – 
low-tide mangroves
and dank, dying things.
What home thrives in an estuary? 
Professor, my love, 
this is my last call.
You will be 
my worst hangover, lingering
for years. 

Lorretta Jessop is a reformed pen-pusher and covert café polygamist living in Sydney, Australia. She has been featured on the 2RPH radio program New Voices as an emerging writer and intends on dedicating 2021 to drafting her first novel: Phoney which aspires to take a literary-selfie of what it means to live in Sydney.