Drinking stinging piss; devouring The Shining

in the soundless-house hour

between 3 and 4 in the morning, hour of black gaps,

hour adrift and maddening, no sign of shore,

I’ve renounced sober. I fear the landfall of dawn

Shuddering as rum and a found-it-in-the-fridge juice mix

burns the throat. Each sugarwater/liquor sip is a pinch

Sickened with each sip, I tip my cup

in support of narcissist Jack Torrance,

my idol, my guy, the only bro around at 3.49.

I drink to his narrative in a book-binge-blitz,

I forgive his sins ‘cause he’s my bro-tagonist

He’s a writer too. He’s ego-teased, too.

My bud instructs how to get fucked-up while he cuts

up kids in a blizzard.

Some of us just can’t handle stress, Jack, you know that,

we all bend til we snap,

we’re so on-edge, so insomniatic,

we’d do that massacre shit for a little bliss.

we all fall from innocence when we’re on the piss.

I turn pages, I sip and wince, enthralled as Jack hacks

through snowdrifts. Miserable, suicidal,

crushed by an unfinished novel,

we hear the void call

And I too, when depressed, when pricked with unrest

crave a silent missus and kids. I’d kill for some kip

I suck another gut-punishing Coruba-swig

And think bail, think parole, think guilty pleas and degrees

of culpability. Jack smashes his antagonists

with a mallet and I wish my main man well.

He’s misunderstood, he’s insane and awake.

Just like me in the hour after three,

Asking only a quiet house, some privacy and a little sleep,

seeking role models in books and a bottles.