alcoholism

Court was fine. I wore a blue button up and my long black wig that made me look like a soccer mom or a very modest witch. I barely remember a single thing except I was convicted of a first DUI due to a technicality in paperwork. I had spent all my family’s money on a lawyer who spent all his money running late night TV ads which is how we got here.

Grace is the bruise the ankle bracelet leaves so you don’t have to smell the menstrual blood fill the metal toilets all day.

“Good news. House arrest. But you gotta sit in booking for a while.”

I nodded. I remembered booking.

“How to forget everything day 61”

I don’t remember this but my mom said that I borrowed my money
from my brother to hire the best DUI lawyer in town. The one in all the commercials. I don’t remember this. But how could I? I had hit my head once on a metal railing and then again against my steering wheel driving 45 miles an hour?My car was covered in battery acid and I still had to pay to get it out of the impoundment.

“Everyone hates drug addicts. “

I said this driving my car to the lawyer.

“You drove here?” He said. “They took your license. You aren’t allowed to drive.”

I looked at him puzzled like the way a puppy looks at the red ball for the first time.

“Don’t tell me anymore,” he said.

Oh but so hard not to. What I wanted to say was I’m still drunk from last night. I let it be and drove home anyway. When the will to live is low, you drive over bridges so fast.

And I lived through that.

How to forget everything day 6”

grace is the way your bones reset themselves
inside of your chest on the way home from
the police station
and the bail provided by your ex.

“My phone is shattered,” I said aloud to him.

what was more concerning is the way I flinched
when the seatbelt touched me.
the bruise was black and thick
and formed.
it was a little hard to breathe.

“I can’t believe they didn’t take you to the emergency room,”
he shook his head like this was
the first time injustice ever
materialized in my own body in front of him.

I held my broken phone in my lap
and the bag of my belongings,
including my wig..
I had taken it off to show them I had no weapons.
(Tuck it in your cheek.)

“I didn’t want to take the blood test. The German guy said if I refuse the blood test,
I don’t go to the hospital,” I had a very fuzzy idea of the episode.
“I refused to blow in the breathalyzer.
Told them my breath wasn’t strong enough.”

They didn’t take me to the hospital.
I vomited in a metal toilet.
They put me in a special cell alone because I was a suicide risk.
I had muttered something I shouldn’t have as they
let me have a puff of a cigarette
before entering the jail.
(Suicide risk, I wrote on my hand later that night).
They charged me with a hit and run, second dui and
refusing the breathalyzer which is its own crime.
I thought attempted suicide was a crime
but they let me pass out on the toilet’s edge with
broken bones and a head injury smelling my own vomit all night
so I guess justice was served.

And I lived through that.

“How to forget everything day 3”

when I was a kid
my dad played this game:
he would ball his fists and
stick his arms in front
of us

start turning them over;
one over the other in a circular
motion like a machine; the way
gears turn round
and round and he would repeat
the phrase
perpetual motion.
we would start to laugh;
those secret games
only family gets.
he would say go ahead, Sarah,
you can’t stop it;
it’s perpetual motion,
go ahead, go ahead
in his thick New Jersey accent;
Wild Irish Rose on his breath,
and a pack of Merits nearby
one burning in the ashtray.
my brother pinching or
poking me to distract me.

I was so small.
I would reach for his arms but
he used his might and
kept turning them like
he was churning something.
the dog was usually howling
and I would be overcome by a fit
of giggling listening to Matt’s
sarcastic comments, watch the smoke
drift from the table and my
mom somewhere near smiling
and he was right:
I couldn’t stop it.
I was too young
and weak.
he would just roll his arms,
his hands clenched and say
perpetual motion
perpetual motion
sarah sarah it’s perpetual
motion.
I would scream and
jump on top of his forearms
to prove him wrong
but everyone agreed that was cheating.

it was the emptiness
I couldn’t take;
the space from the post to
my side and the absence of
words between that.
and also the unbridled
mood swings.
the way no one saw me
or heard me or checked
in.
I would spend hours
pacing the small corridor, the
tiny living room and saying things
out loud to myself:
I can make it
it’s fine
I can make it here
or I would turn it up
as loud as it would go and
vacillate between the pacing and
jumping up and down, twisting
a necklace or straw
in my hand
and I would picture only one thing:
breakfast or dinner
with a man   it wasn’t
the man, it was the nourishment
I craved, the nutrition
I lacked and the double security
of food and laughter.
it always took place over a meal.
I reached for it every time I felt
anxious, every time I had a
major transition–the savior returned;
the reverie of an unconditional
ear, someone placing their hand on
the small of my back,
handing me water,
congratulating me on completing
a piece and asking me
the question.
.
I rarely pictured the warmth
in sex   that wasn’t what
I lacked.   it was the question I wanted.
he always held space for
the long version.
taking a bite with my fork,
it was cooked or take out
or restaurant, it didn’t matter.
it was warm and filling
and good.
he would say
tell me again
and I would begin the story
where it began:
January 5, 2014,

I arrived in
Kensington to awake
from the middle of a
perpetual daydream.
no, the thing
about your brother
“Sarah,” she gently said,
getting my attention again.
I look up from the top of
my thermos to see my therapist.

“You were going to tell me more
about your brother,”
she repeated.

it’s Thursday, I’m between worlds
again and we are finally
opening it.

“synchronicity”