FREE VERSE Poem: Out Drinking, by Greg Hill

When we get drunk, things get worse. As always. And I’m not immune

to my part in it. First, I throw out some snide remark behind their backs

about your friend and his longtime coworker. Maybe my comments

start out rather benign, but they get progressively stinging until you say something

which causes me to turn the focus of my gibes to you. This gets the anger

boiling in you. You’re not protecting them, so much as looking for a fight.

So you say things about me that you would never say if we were still

on our first six-pack and if we hadn’t polished off what was left

of those two bottles, one cheap whiskey, one cheap rum. You start in with digs

about my attitude, which, you will remind me, doesn’t suit you.

Then your friend and his buddy tag in about my being a writer

or about what I have chosen to wear. My lack of style never avoids their insults.

But ultimately their jabs at me are only an interlude

from the shit they go back to hurling at one another, leaving us

to continue the escalation of insults to each other.

I contend that you don’t know what you’re talking about when you tell me

I’m no good at hanging out or being social, when I hint I’d rather not go to another bar

just so the guys can play pool. By now, I’m tired of hearing them brag about their skills,

especially since I know they aren’t very good.

But then I refuse to be the fourth in a game of doubles, so suddenly I’m a jackass

not worth hanging with anymore and also I’m worthless and an embarrassment. You regret

inviting me to join you, but never what you say when I actually do come along.

I spend the remainder of the night in silence at the corner of the bar

nursing a couple more drafts while the rest of you argue over the rules

about scratching and calling your shots, which takes up more time than actually playing.

For some reason, we still feel bound to share one cab home,

enduring a silence made no less tense by the driver’s half of a conversation in Farsi.

We both pass out as soon as we retreat to our bedrooms,

the final retort the echoes of each door slamming.

The last thought I have as I fall asleep is what an asshole you are.

What you think about me stings with the same venom, if it isn’t even worse.

The mutual blame lingers like the stink of everyone’s stale bedsheets.

People say that when you get drunk, you express true feelings

you normally suppress. Good thing that’s totally not true, or it would certainly be

awkward the next morning, when you will have to see me just a few hours after telling me

you dragged me along last night only out of pity but not to worry, that that

will never happen ever again, and I will have to look back at you

and wonder if you really mean it when you say that you wished we weren’t brothers.