My Fill

The gulf coast, summer of 2004, a year before Katrina would wreck it all--
I was wrecking myself, a hurricane of a houseguest, but calling
my storms a party barge ride. Claiming this even as we stumbled out of the bar into morning's
light, even as I nodded off in my eggs and pancakes at the Waffle House next door,
even as I dove into the streets of New Orleans and swam them on rivers of gin.

And the ache in my chest--the big empty,
the lonely hole where my heart should go--
would never overflow, no matter how much drink
I took. I took it in stride. Don't know, then, why I cried and cried.
And this, I claimed, a glorious ride. I nearly did myself in.