Kitchen Thoughts on Seventeen

I like to pretend I don't, but
I know exactly what I'm doing.
 
I've learned a compulsion to reach for the open bottle
every night
in the kitchen,
because my parents are oblivious enough to leave it out,
and a little red wine never hurt anybody.
 
So I stare, wistful, at the label.
Dreaming Tree,
Clos du Bois,
Coppola,
the Pinot in the fridge -
always a blood and a white,
sometimes three different reds
in one night.
I remember the days
when I'd swig on each
with a silent strategy
and increments of inches,
mark the liquid-level,  
and pray they wouldn't notice;
drop by the kitchen and its half-lit
mess of orange and opportunity
to sip myself dizzy
 
with whatever they were drinking:
 
I snuck shots into water bottles,
drinking thoughts by the fucking throttle,
slipping
beer in my sleeves
on football nights;
I'd shiver and grin,
and just three did me in;
made it easier to write:
made playing guitar
a dance with freedom and right...
 
a little wine never hurt anybody,
but the days when I swore I'd wait
for twenty-one died awfully -
sick, ripped right off me
when the lights in that naive little notion went out
and I started wanting.
My first beer
killed the person I once was,
and I don't regret it,
 
but I do grapple with urges
in mind, and resurges
of wanting a break or escape
having heard it -
wanting is exhausting,
but I am a masochist in and out of the sheets
so I flaunt it,
dive straight into stress,
gallivantish -
aware of the curse
but too bored to shake offers,
 
kept my ass far away
from the principal's office -
four-one GPA strong, so nobody bothered
to watch how much wine
was in the damn bottle -
 
What kind of parent does that? -
I've gone nauseous  
wondering, but
it's my fault. I chose.
 
I know exactly what I'm doing.
 
I get bored of sobriety
easily,
not so keen to feel time pass
like lime grass on my lips,
because seconds are slow,
sour, and bitter to split -
when I smoke, they go home
so I don't feel so cautious:
 
anything to move time;
anything for a hit
and a taste under-placed
in the gravel and grit
of my throat the next day;
then, the beauty is in -  
then I miss being high
but love sober for this:
 
for the love I found
lying around
in the mirror -
 
for the fire I found
in a human being
divine,
 
for air to breathe carefully,
no moment to miss
of the days of slow-motion
and light-speed and bliss -  
having played with unreal,  
real is light and weightless;
if it's healing for me,
I will use as I wish.
 
My tired, happy brain...
it's green-lighted,
but red wine-sighted:
 
still, the bottles in the kitchen
look tempting;
like a plea to go back
to eighty proof,
 
when the room was spinning
and my eyes were the roof,
 
but I drank sixteen;
I tried its young wings.
I am done with those choices;
finished with needing.
My head is a fortress
and I choose the demons.
 
I've had no alcohol
since he said he would stop;
now, I hate it; at yearning,
my sick stomach drops -  
oh, dear god, I hate booze
and his father - dear GOD
would I wring both their necks
for the pain that they caused -
 
but neck-wringing is useless;
my own life has proved this -  
I will win seventeen
with that boy and a new wish.
 
The fire I found
in that first love abound -
in that rest-of-my-life, holy nightlight of sound -
is nowhere near "nothing" or flickering out.
 
I adore it so much  
I could spit on red wine:
at the want for a drink,
 
all I see are his eyes,
 
so I swallow nothing
but my passion and pride.