I’m drunk again.

This time on wine

but it was

(the last time)

the tick of the clock

as I swallowed up

the droplets of red

on my mind.

 

Tick, tick.

tock.

Sip, sip.

stop.

 

I’ve been drunk

before:

on the kitchen floor

and the memory

of breathing

has spun a deeper

meaning

to what I think

and I say

yet nothing more.

 

Tick, tick.

tock.

Sip, sip.

stop.

 

I’m drunk again.

Many times

it’s not the wine

but the sweet memory

of what

no longer is mine:

laugh from cobblestone street

in Barcelona’s heat.

simmer of summer

promised by a drummer.

gentle branches of a tree

softly holding me

as I sat

‘gainst her bark,

and wrote

of insecurity.

 

Tick, tick.

tock.

Sip, sip.

stop.

 

I’ve been drunk before

on nothing more

than the tick

of the clock

‘hind my shoulder.

And it’s here that I sit

without a song or a hit:

the tick tick tok

of the clock

pulls me under.