drinking

prologue

Drinking.

We stare at each other like two dolls in an abandoned shop. We see each other's eyes, but we don't. It's like staring into a bottomless well full of murky water, never seeing the depths.

We see each other. But we never quite, do. Not with the glass bottles in our hands and the guilt running through our veins. Not with the amount of empty glasses around us like we're the sun and the bottles are our planets.

With every gulp on the melancholy-making liquid we only push ourselves out further from the shores. The crashing waves threaten to drown us in our own pain and we let it.. sinking, falling. 

Floating when we can't quite catch our breath, or catch anything at all. Nothingness is what it feels like. I feel like nothing.

I don't know how many bottles or glasses I drink at two a.m. in the morning and nor do I want to know. I don't want to see the glass doll that he thinks is sitting in front of him, cross-legged with messy hair and a messy heart.

He doesn't want to see himself with the bags under his eyes and the shaking hand holding the vial of loneliness. And he doesn't. He doesn't see. None of them do. They don't see the potential he holds with every stroke on his canvas until he's painting with tears. They don't see him broke only holding the art supplies he holds dear, because he doesn't. He threw away all his love in the jugs holding desolation liquid. 

And now they're both here. Staring at each other, but seeing nothing. Because that's what they see themselves as. Nothing. Blank bodies with blank souls and blank stares. 

So why do they drink, chugging down the lifeless fluid like their own life depends on it? They don't remember their bodies smashing together and doing the unholy things that only the night can recall. 

They don't remember sitting on the roof with their lips connecting or doffing each other's clothes in the bedroom. 

No, they don't remember, they don't see, they don't feel.

Because they're

drinking.