cranberry juice & vodka,
you know I would.
We poured ourselves a mixture then,
50/50 —one part juice to one part Grey Goose
first years shouldn’t be able to afford
Grey Goose
And I must have had
two and a half cups,
large cups,
Schneider Center cups,
ignorantly testing
the limits of
my liver
but with you all,
with you.
The room spun,
tilt-a-whirl,
intestines little gymnasts
and everyone ordinary
became attractive
The 50-50 Mix
rendered us all
lip-slutty
Is this the part where you and I kiss?
I don’t remember much:
the music was bad and blaring,
and I wore a floor-length black boho skirt
people were lined up--
as though awaiting a firing squad--
on the two twin extra-longs,
flip-flopped feet flitting near the floor;
then,
retching alone in my
retching alone in my
room into a metal trashcan
as though bobbing for apples,
too delirious to empty it,
leaving it instead, half-consciously,
in the public bathroom
across the hall from room 207.
The custodian found it the next day
and guilt consumed me.
I emptied it into the toilet
so she wouldn’t have to
That smell, that taste:
of cranberries
and vodka
and bile
has not left me, for ten years.
To this day, I cannot enjoy vodka
in any form.
That 50-50 mix--
What we drank
when we were
FINALLY masters of us,
our time
and all the lovely women
who secretly swooned
swooned, drunkenly,
then and later on,
as though the half-broken
half-breakers
were also worth loving.
One part
broken, one part
breaking;
one part
cranberries, one part
ethanol.
From concentrate,
from fountains;
and bottled,
distilled.
From concentrate,
from fountains;
and bottled,
distilled.
. . . . .
© erika simone 2014
