Drinking for Clarity

 

Drinking for Clarity

I lift the glass to chase a fleeting clarity,

amber fire to hush the howling in my head.

But every bottle turns a midnight thief,

stealing hours, stealing hope,

leaving only ghosts and echoes in my bed.  I call on sleep to wrap me in its velvet dark,

to silence the relentless jury of my mind,

the accusations circling like hungry sharks.

Yet even there you find me—

sliding through the seams of dreaming,

wearing the face I tried so hard to leave behind.  Scars are silent storytellers on my skin,

thin silver threads that murmur, You are not invincible.

Each raised line a quiet vow,

a map of battles fought and barely won.

And pain—oh patient, unrelenting pain—

keeps the memory alive,

a slow, insistent drumbeat in my veins,

ensuring I will never quite forget.  Yet time arrives, soft-footed healer in the dawn,

a gentle doctor with unhurried hands.

It stitches torn flesh with threads of morning light,

soothes the angry red to faded, tender rose.

It doctors every gash, every bruise, every break,

and in the quiet spaces where the hurt once screamed,

it plants the fragile seeds of second chances—  new beginnings trembling toward the sun,

potential whispering through the scar tissue,

like green shoots rising after winter’s long defeat.

The story isn’t finished,

the heart still learns to beat.  Let the wounded walk again,

let the broken learn to sing—

for even in the ruins,

something beautiful begins.