Whiskey Soured

October - December

Whiskey’s gone sour –
Kind of tastes like tears and vinegar.
And turns out my favorite fruit wine still tastes like tarot cards in a whore’s kitchen.
Of betrayal.
Of predation - no
Of being prey
Of being collateral damage
Of being the price smugly paid
Without even a moment’s hesitation

The pierced heart lives in my soul
And an upended king of swords in my bed
Wounding himself, over and again, like seasons
Are you really a nurturer, Miss Two-of-Cups?
Or do you simply agree
Parrot back whatever will keep your image soft
Compliant
Preferable
No matter what the facts are
No matter who or how it hurts
You’re an enabler

It was Wounding Season
Rash and angry, building steam by the day
They hit me too, blood and blade alike
And my stock of sutures and bandages was so low
You were supposed to bring more
Help me stop the bleeding
But you only brought more blades
Crusted in salt
Carefully painted as comfort
Validation
You dared to call it love

I’m terrified of my cards
They feel slimed. Dense. Cloying.
Like wine spiked with Chambord and Jameson
When my back was turned, and your cup was empty
Pushed to my lips with hands that weren’t mine
Drowning fear in a blackout that was somehow my fault
You couldn’t let me be needed instead of – or even as well as - you
Even though you barely knew what to do
So you made my worst nightmare happen, and kept me from my king in crisis
It didn’t matter that I needed you
My deck smacks of feeling violated

You learned compliance to survive –
Learned to be so supple and agreeable
That maybe you could be too small to beat
But survival means nothing to you
At least not anyone else’s.
Instead of shrinking, praying to be someone else, this time
You had to make sure it was someone else
So it couldn’t be you again
You made me a lamb for slaughter,
Planting barbs and needles
While you pitied me to my face, pretending to listen
“wishing you could make it better”
But making sure I saw the loading of the bolts
And you made him your supply
Pretending his fingers were the ones on the trigger
And yours would be stroking me, if only you could reach
Never mind not even bothering to lift your arm but to aim

I thought you saw me
Heard me
You were the only place I had to go
An abattoir dressed in lover’s finery
A carver I looked at like a saint, for not discarding us
You said you knew how to handle it, you weren’t new
But you only knew how to elude choking on smoke by keeping gas on the fire
Even when there was nothing left to burn
You ignited it again just to be praised for holding an extinguisher
That’s pin had never even been pulled
My lungs seared in the charred debris, my arms throbbing from hauling a bucket
You artfully only spoke of when empty
Professing it was dry
--
You’re an enabler, and a fiend all the same
Dying for the validation
Of destroying lives, just to prove to yourself that you can
You fancy yourself launching a thousand ships
And still ransack the city with no one the wiser