Bourbon Gods

I feel as though I’ve lost something.  Something that’s been buried deep down inside my being.  A primordial ghost…maybe it’s the Holy Spirit after all.  If it is, then I have to admit that the church ladies have been right all these years.  Thankfully, I know that it’s not the vestiges of religion that remain swirling in phantom currents.  It’s just me.  I have lost, no, truer yet, misplaced a part of myself that I only remembered existed just now. It’s like a sliver of hickory and inside that sliver are all the lovers I loved only in my mind, all the breaths I sucked down in order to not yawn so that Mr. So and So wouldn’t get mad and scold me in front of my classmates, and all the hopes and dreams that I choked before mentioning because once I had spoken them I’d have to show my cards and a good card player never does that until the perfect moment.  The only difficulty is that this sliver is my soul.

What’s a man to do when he’s lost his soul?  I sit and drink.  I drink this bourbon until there’s space for more fire, “Bartender, another please.”  And he looks at me with that knowing look, and I know that he would drink with me if he could, not exactly with me, but he would have one, but his manager is here, and he’s a venture capitalist, the prick.  I fill on the burn, and I offer little prayers to what I convince myself are the bourbon gods, but I know that I am really praying to myself.  I figure if you can’t pray to yourself, then whom can you pray to?

“Dear bourbon gods, please help me find my soul.  I seem to have lost it and I won’t feel all right until I find it again.  Thanks again for your requisite consideration.”