Bluegrass Howl

When you're trapped and see no way out

Bluegrass Howl

 

Buy me a bottle of whiskey

And I will tell all my secrets

They will spill out like blood

From the wounds on

My memory

I will tell you how I

 Wish I was in your kitchen

Neat and tidy with

Gleaming copper pots

And the heady aroma

Of my childhood

How my life is not worth

The paper it is

Written on

 

Buy me a bottle of whiskey

And I will tell you how

I came to be here in

This foreign soil

A hostile earth that

Only grows one crop

 

I will down my caustic

Therapy and let the

Burn spread outward

The only real treatment

For misplaced nostalgia

 

Buy me a bottle of whiskey

And I will spend

The night hoping that

Tomorrow will not be

As wasted as I am

Right now

 

-Zoe Richardson

Author's Note

Leave your thoughts and take a cookie on your way out. They're delicious!

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

I am thinking about that bottle of whiskey and what an almighty hangover will be the price to pay for over indulgence. I am also thinking how good it is to get rid of some of that pain, even if its for a short while. The art is knowing when to stop. Moderation is a must. Thanks for the cookies. They were yummy.

Chris

[Zoe Richardson]

Which is why I am not a drinker. When you sober up, your problems are all there waiting for you. Strangely, though, on the occasions I did drink I never had a hangover the next day. I write poems about drinking because the urge to numb pain is universal. And because, "there but for the Grace of God go I."

[barleygirl]

Love your gritty details, yet not telling such a tale with venom . . . instead, like an ode to the decrepit stuff deep inside that requires lubrication to be released (((HUGS)))

[Zoe Richardson]

Sometimes it's not about the pain, but what you want to do about the pain that becomes the tale to tell.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

The cookies were good, thank you.
I really like this poem...
they say people are most honest when hitting the bottle...
We can't drink away our ills...they just go down our throat and then come back up in a bad way.
the foreign soil that is what I have become, I don't know me anymore.
And I have had that same feeling that my life was not worth the paper it is written on.
so why do I keep putting down on paper? Not sure.
j.

[Zoe Richardson]

Confession: I was never much of a drinker. When you sober up, all your problems are still there. But I understand the urge, the desire to obliterate the pain for a little while. So, instead of actually drinking, I write about wanting to drink. Your life is worth more paper. You might not see it now, but that is why you keep writing. When you read back through, you see how far you've come!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Good point.