I have found out why I drink. It’s not a pretty reason, it’s not a safe reason. I don’t drink because I love the sweet taste sliding down my parched throat (though beer does do that for me—but I don’t drink beer to get drunk). I don’t drink to loosen up my aching limbs, to dance the night away with strangers I have never met, to make easy conversation with the unknowns. I don’t drink because it makes me smile when I’m buzzed, because my limbs have a sort of rush going through them; my blood pumping alcohol at more than sixty beats a minute. I don’t drink because of these reasons, though it does all of those things.
I drink because you are not here. I drink when I feel like falling down and crying, I drink when someone has taken a hot poker and speared both my eyes out, then branded my heart. It’s when their words have scarred me, upon self-inflicted wounds, that I cannot stay standing. It’s then my knees start to shake and I just want to erase everything about the past that has led me to this one, cruel moment. Then I drink, and I get drunk, and then it doesn’t matter that I am the fucked up girl with issues. But then you see me, and I’m still broken, but trying not to notice; and my heart breaks all over again, because I wanted to be better for you. And I’m not, I’m just the broken girl—except now I’m drunk, too.
