Katrina Kaye

On this Saturday night, some of us have
curled our toes in sand, tried to catch flies
with chopsticks, counted stars. Some of us
have found some form of peace,

but we never really learned the fine balance
of precious words on a sober tongue,
or the reprieve offered by sunset
and a breath pulled into lower belly.

Some of us drink faster than others,
some of us have mango bodies that slurp quick fire,
with spread lips to laugh or fang,
erupting throats to sing or scream.

Some of us clean the wax that drools from lips,
chatter like keyboards, unravel our ribbons,
trade jokes with the dead and pluck the frayed pages
of written confessions out of the fire pit.

The last time we were here,
I read Revelations from the Bible
in the hotel nightstand with preacher precision.

I rattled on about the end of the world
in a quick cadence to distant drumbeats
played for strange faces and arched eyebrows.

The past we longed to forget
waits for us to reenact its misdeeds.

The present we longed to ignore
perches on our shoulder blades.

Some of us got drunk, while others
found their way to tightly wrapped
bed and others paced like anxious dogs,
unstoppable, urgent, ready for war and revolution.

The future we hope to avoid
bides time on the other side of tonight.
Some of us may wake up to it in the morning
and forget how we desperate we were for the end of the world.

 

“Drunk in a Hotel Room” is previously published in Dear Booze (2022).