Do you know when you accidentally step on glass…
You wonder which hurt person caused all of this fuss
You never see it happening but there’s proof of it
The broken alcohol bottles are sprinkled down the road
Like wild daisies except the alcohol hurts
You think about the damage a simple bitter taste has caused
On organs, on bodies, on families
Uncle and niece relationships broken
Father and son
Mothers, grandparents…
Broken
A relationship that can never be fixed
Just like the broken alcohol bottles one finds on pavement of streets that are tired of crying
Those bottles will never be put back together to their original form
Loss
All we ever feel is loss
All for a bitter intoxicating taste

I wrote Alcohol after reading The Dream is Over in Zarzamora: Poetry of Survival written by Vincent Cooper, a Xicano poet from Los Angeles. The first poem tells the story of his experience losing his cousins to an overdose and to the criminal justice system. This particular poem reminded me of the issues that have affected my family, the issues we never talk about like alcoholism, drug addiction, and incarceration. I also think about how patriarchy and abuse has fucked with the lives of the womxn in my family and to this day, as a family unit, we have not addressed this.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Angelica