The anxious man

Go to the party
And drink warm piss beer with lonely strangers
No one here has anyone to go home to
That’s why they’re here
Drinking
Themselves to sleep
Nightcap – such a graceful word
Like a private evening award
Like an 80 proof nyquil
I’ve always found pills more effective
But whether your medicine is swallowed, snorted, smoked, or fucked
The anxious man still wakes in the night
Naked, in a cold sweat, with a mouth so dry and breath so stinking and caustic no one will ever kiss him
Not his mother. Not the whore in his bed.
Not the woman he misses
The one he left because he had to
Because otherwise she would have left him first
The one whose forgotten clothing the whore sleeps in
He wraps his arms around his pillow
With a straddling grasp
And stares away with pursed lips
Like a 216 point infant in his crib
Only there are no guardrails and the ground is closer