just one more day

I woke up at 10pm and thought it was 10pm the next day. Didn't remember falling asleep, then again, I didn't remember much since last wednesday. Today was monday, rather, I thought it was tuesday.

it would of meant I had slept though work without calling in. It would I meant I was fired for sure. I didn't care. Fuck that back-breaking job. It would of meant it was my best friend's birthday, and somewhere, some bar, there was a crowd of people getting smashed in his celebration. I was ready for more, I wanted to go back out. I was ready to make calls and find out where everyone was.

I reached for my smokes and lit up a cigarette. It slowly crept into my head that it was still the same day, I hadn't slept through the night the day through work. A mixed sense of relief and disappointment overcame my aching bones and sore eyes. I rubbed my neck and fumbled with the cd player. Pressing play and Otis Redding cried out through the speakers into the room.

"I've been missing you for so many days
I keep wanting you, lord, in so many ways
I can't get you off of my mind
But true love is so hard to find"

I turned the light on and took off my sweatshirt I had passed out in. It reaked of three nights in bars. Of spilled beer, smoke and dirty booths. Of someone's sweet smelling hair.

my hands shook with fine tremors. My muscles sagged and didn't want to work anymore. I had a pain in my stomach from god-knows-what I did to my organs the past 3 nights. I reached into my messenger bag, pulling out a container of percocets and gulped one down.

"I want yet another day
Ooh, I need another day
Darling, let me have another day
And I can be anything that you want me to be, now, now, ooh"

Fell back onto my pillow and stared at the ceiling, the cigarette smoke waving into the air. I remembered words in my head that would of, eventually, worked it's way into a poem. Something about not being able to come back, even if I wanted to.

I remembered shopping with her after work one day. We bought new and expensive things for our apartment. Red dinner plates and flatware. A blue cloth for our new kitchen table and blue placemats. We bought a clock and a tooth brush holder that attached to the bathroom mirror. The cats played in the tissue paper that it was all wrapped up in.

"The sweet things you used to do to me
Sometimes, well, you used to say them to me
I can't forget those lovely days, now
But this is the price I'm about to pay"

I thought about the girl who worked in a different department at my job who smiled at me each day. I didn't know her name, she didn't know mine. I thought about inviting her out for the viciously drunken night that would be my friend's birthday party. I thought about sitting next to her at some bar amongst my friends, introducing her. I thought about putting my arm around her at some point during the night. I thought about kissing her.
I thought about the platnium blonde on sunday night who sat next to me on that couch in that dive bar. Friend's of a friend, I had just met her. I thought about my friend telling me that she seemed interested. She liked my tattoos and my hat. My hat. Yeah, I have so much going for me. Sure. I got my hat. I remember her leaving before I could really talk to her. I remember finding that dark place in my heart after the fourth shot of whiskey and the 20th guinness.
I remember the girl from the party I was at saturday night, sitting outside in our friend's backyard with a bunch of people I didn't know. I knew her, she knew me. I remember how I knew she was going to be there, and I tried to clean myself up before I left my place that night. I showed up with half a 40 left in a paper bag and a malt liquor buzz. I finished it quickly and turned to the cases of beer in the fridge. I remember her leaving early, 1 or 1:30am. I had only been there since around 11:30pm. I remember getting more and more drunk. I remember kicking someone's parked car. I remember getting home around 3am. I remember falling on my steps. I remember waking up and having a beer.

"I will do anything that you want me to do, now
Say anything that you want me to say, yeah, yeah
Buy you anything you want me to buy
And I can cherish you till the day I die"

I was shivering. The first autumn night had settled over philly and I loved it. The windows were left open and a breeze lazily worked it's way in and out. I shivered. I smoked. I hurt. I had too many memories. I still had bitterness left over from the night before. The bitterness of hope, hoping that next night out will be the different one. The one that changes the routine of abuse and blackouts and sickness. The routine of shits and giggles. The bitterness when nothing changes, and you stagger home at some ungodly hour the same way you did the night before, and the night before that.

and the night before that.

and the night before that.

"If you let me have another day
Please let me have one more day
Ooh I want just one more day, lord
And I can be everything that you want me to be"

Those words, the words that had started forming in my head during the walk home. I searched for them.

faced with the option,
of keeping the current course
with unknown shores
at an unknown distance
or turning back home,
should your light appear on the rocky
cliffs,
the line on our dead horizon
I doubt return could happen.
even if the crew of my heart
threatened mutiny for the chance of
sailing through your familiar light.
plot a chart
under polaris
the comfortable and familiar
do not belong on this ship anymore.

amen.