At a dive bar with a married man
And I know the only reason
We are out together
Is because we are helping keep
Each other sober
Because we both are on our last life
Because the other 8 were spent red-eyed
Bent over filthy toilet bulbs
Vomiting bile and blood
And dead cells from the insides
Of our esophagus

I know that he will go home to his dazzling wife
And tuck her in under
Warm down comforters and whisper
a prayer for me

and I will go home alone, gasping at the end of
a menthol cigarette, lighting candles and fidgeting
with my hair
and I don’t want anything
with this man except for his camaraderie

Somewhere someone else feels as unaccompanied as I feel
Somewhere there is a song yet to be written about me
Somewhere there is a boy rocking back and forth
Because he loves no one and no one loves him back
Somewhere there is a girl with a lightening bolt tattoo
On the middle finger of her left hand
Picking nail polish off her thumb
Humming incoherently in some dimly lit bar
In some small East Coast town
She is humming a song she doesn’t even know
She is praying to empty dishes and smooth round stones
She has already hit bottom
And can’t drink another drop
And doesn’t know if anyone will ever really adore her again
That girl is me.

Zoe Alexandra