and you said you couldn’t stop
because it was cunning, and
baffled you just kept right on
despite the wife packed up
one foot out the front door
kids, midnight sleepy-eyed
dragged to cold running car
that’s not me, though, that’s
you, and not my pathetic
story about your weakness
and you said you couldn’t stop
after berating her for nothing
for the tenth time in as many
days when really you were
berating yourself because you
are powerless over something
that you think you should be
able to control, cuz control
is all you really feel you have
left that you can call yours
all else has been drowned
away in an unending supply
of bourbon, or maybe rye
and thousands of dead soldier’s
that were really all you felt
until someone poked through
the dense fog and slapped
you damn near silly with your
own stifling selfishness, and
you release, cry and embrace
your own growing powerlessness