A relapsing recidivist guilty as charged I confess
I unbarred my lips to ruby lymph once again,
my feeble mind my accomplice incited my right hand
to pour me twelve chalices of wine, seduce me

with promises of voluptuous respite. They slunk
down my throat to hide in vessels, heavy oak
barrels stranded in my veins. They wore blackberries,
underwood perfume, beguiled me with their body

inebriated thoughts, recasting torments of my reason
into flights of fancy, words spoken blithely to enthral
solely the desperate and lonely. I feigned interest
in their malaise, disregarded their lack of fantasy,

renounced passion for the sake, of vacuous obliviousness.
By now I know the process very well. Faint lights camouflage
the garble and my superciliousness, slurred chats carry
cacophony to my brain, whilst I, farcically, strive to recover

with a shot of rum. Calenture from the cage of my cynicism.
Rudely abandoned by euphoria I got closer, craving
a dose of human touch, succumbing to depression I awaited
further intoxication. My temporal lobes already damaged

by my vices altered perceptions, noises echoed drills
through my synapses I started forgetting, social ills
self-centring, selective attention blurred my vision,
people looked gleeful I was not. Unable to pretend

my rehabilitated personality bellowed truths, disinhibited
abreactions until confusion conquered my cerebellum,
I lost coordination, fell on others skulking to make my way
home. I was tired and so was my hippocampus,

condemning me to blackouts in retaliation for indulgence,
I tried my best, a step at the time though the mad hatter
blarneyed me into swallowing a last drop, the one
for the road. I reassured myself I could cope,

for what good is a relapse if I don’t, take it to the next level.
It was two a.m. alcohol poisoning was granting me stupor,
I trudged, floundered yet endured postponing death
with mathematics, toying with numbers at my door

spotted Orion counted stars, I struggled to insert the key
in the keyhole, crawled up the stairs glimpsed at the trilobite
in the mirror, bathing in plankton feeding on luminescence
I plunged, in my bed entrusting my liver

to remove lingering traces of my crime, made a pact
with my hair, the sole witnesses of my sinful oblivion,
promised them piacular oils in exchange of their silence
as I return to rehab, for the twelfth time in a row.

[Featured painting: The Temptress by Jack Vettriano]