drinking hard liquor at forty-eight By John Grochalski

 

you think

it used to be so easy

to throw it all away

the jobs

the cities

the bank account

but now?

drinking hard liquor at forty-eight

as the television advertises

erectile disfunction pills

blood pressure meds

life insurance

and tells you

at your age

to get your colon checked

you’re reminded

that it’s not so easy now

to give up on it all

that the world doesn’t want you

the way that it once did

that the world would

throw away a guy like you

if it could

no new jobs

will take you

no new cities

have anything original to offer

age and experience

are a trap

instead of some kind of freedom

sure,

you give less of a fuck

but no one cares about your opinion

anymore

anyway

or maybe you’ve just gone soft

and the fire that used to burn

is just a flicker of light

this liquor a salve

on the open wound

that is your existence

you lift weights

you run

but at the end of the day

you’re an exhausted zombie

on the couch

by nine

a shell of a soul

in front of a television

drinking hard liquor at forty-eight

doing the math

of your timeline

the years that came before

the ones you maybe

have left

unrefined gambling

with your own mortality

the good years

plucked away

without your full consent

and the anxiety

burns so rich

the self-sadness

such a wellspring

that it’s going to flood

you think

fuck it

fuck it all

you turn off the tv

and go to the fridge

to fill the slick tumbler

to the top

with more cold booze

because why not?

because it’s the way

it’s always been

the only way

and tomorrow?

tomorrow

doesn’t care

about tonight’s pity party

tomorrow is

coming for you, man

again

and again

and all over again

so suck it down

and suck it up.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.