this lenten season

this Lenten season

has been particularly dark
having given up the whiskey

for forty long nights.
oh, the days number but thirteen,

unlucky thirteen,

and i am finding
it difficult to be alone with my heart.

maybe i drink a little too much
(i probably do),

but not blackout drunk, not shitfaced,

just enough
to dull the edge, to feel less

of sorrow, this panic,
these woes of long days

(they all seem so long).

so i watch the sober clock
tick away hours and minutes, until finally

i can slip beyond the darkness –
into the cloister of sleep.

i grow tired of feeling.