Sobriety

 My soul is a well that draws deep from the waters of time. My body is a circle of stones housing it from wondering passerby's. My essence is simplicity and inconvenience in a land of singular valves and pipes.  I am an antiquated relic I think. 

  Water is cool, and smooth. I like to press my fingers against it to feel the slightest changing in degrees of tension. I'll immerse my face within the chilled sensation, holding my breath and counting seconds as they pass. In that moment, I am in the moment. I am connected with the loud world, in a quiet moment. With my face in the waters, I can feel the breath caged within me start to panic in a way of peace. I am a vessel, spilling time around me. It swishes and swashes, swirling about. My memory is a canteen, pouring out distilled thoughts.  Drops of anguish, and drips of solitude linger like condensation.  Still-frames are frozen in my recollections. 

August 26 was the day my father stopped drinking. August 26th is the day he died. August 27th the river rose and flooded me with scars. I think of God in the two loves that left in August. I used to miss them so terribly from a time that I was drunk on their affection.  I would drink in the minutes spent together, and I’d watch time disappear. 

  But I’m sober now.

  I’m not drunk of affection, or whiskey colored eyes, or the pain of a broken promise of a future spent together. I’m not sipping on “what could have beens” because I’ve come to new understanding. We weren’t in love, we were just in fun together.  Truth is a Monday morning wake up call, and I know we were wrong for each other. 

 

 I’m sober now.