Determined Intoxication

We only spend
a few hours together a day
during the work week.
You’ll pick me up
from dinners when I’ve had too much to drink
or show up while I’m writing
a pointless essay
or a poem about you.

When you showed up
in my bedroom tonight
you knew you’d done something wrong
and asked me to get up
out of my desk chair and put down
my pen to join you on my bed.

In my mind, I asked you
to leave. I told you
you could try again tomorrow.

We talked about the weekend
when we could spend
your drug money
and the majority of your time
recuperating from the late night
and early morning hours.
I asked you the date and
you told me, “October 15th, love.”
I dug into the curve of your shoulder
and your long thick neck
and did not speak
until you kissed my hair
for a long five seconds (I wish
it lasted longer).

“I’m going to get really drunk,”
I told you.

Still deep in your shoulder
I told you I was going to drink
all day and
get completely wasted.
You told me
we would get a big bottle of liquor,
but I knew
it wouldn’t be enough.
You were so used
to spending your weekends
getting trashed and progressively closer
to my naked body
in the bed we lay in
you didn’t bother to ask
the reasoning for my
determination to get drunk;
my expecting an
intoxicated entanglement.

I looked
at the frame on my bedside table
with the picture of a young me
with a man I didn’t know.
I told you
that Saturday was my fathers birthday.