Why Do You Drink?

A short poem representing the back and forth between a child and a parent.

Why Do You Drink?

Do acid instead.

Life could be much more fun,

with acid in your head,

and smoke in your lungs.

There's always seven steps,

Try taking them after a spinal tap.

Precious pink liver kidney stew,

Drowned in Budweiser: wiser than you.

Perfect little lungs, absorbing pollution;

A life long journey through a fiberglass filter.

A fading two-month intermission,

From a permissively addressed addiction...

Undressed and underfed sympathetic condition,

A symptom of the worst piece of advice ever given.

Shut up!

Shut the f**k up, you ungrateful slug-

We are lovely little cretins,

Sliding our way through our own waste and wreckage

A lonely, burning world, make haste!

We will soon run out of oxygen.

Well,

well,

well...

Why do you drink?

Reviews

[Natasha Zoya]

I find it fascinating that the title asks Why do you Drink but the narrator avoids the question as much as possible to something else like acid or smoking than finally just tells the questioner to shut up. It makes the reader wonder what narrator is actually going through.

[Indra's Child]

I find that instead of a back and forth between a child and their parent, it's more of an inner dialogue, an argument in my own head about being a Nihilist while watching the world blow up, or being an activist and rushing out to save people before it does. I'm never sure where I stand. Most people, are content to sit back and ignore it, because deep down they know that ignorance is bliss. But, knowledge is power. So on, and so forth go the voices in my head...