16:59

Good morning. I once loved you.

Now you scare the hell out of me.

Only now. Now after years and years of knowing you. Only after I left home for months on end, meeting new people and living new lives before making my way back to you. You who hadn’t changed, not a bit since I’d been gone.

Still working all those hours, still waking at all those strange, early times. Still leaving bottles and cans in all the usual places, half-empty and stale and forgotten, replaced by another that ended up abandoned right beside the three before it. Night after night after night as you’ve always done, always for as long as I’ve known you. No different and nothing strange, I’d just never stopped to think. I’d never stopped to really look.

Maybe if it had made you angry, then I would have noticed sooner. If it made you violent or cruel or any of those things I’d be taught to keep my eyes out for. I was never prepared for apathy and wasteful habit, of you just doing your thing and leaving waste in the path of mine. Mundane enough to feel normal, just your flavor of the faults everyone had. It was just the way the evenings went. It was just the way the mornings were. Forgotten cans and restless nights and falling asleep in the middle of a movie and barely making it to your job on time… but still with a smile. Comfortable and content.

God, what a poison that smile was! Comfortable and content and claiming all was fine, claiming all would just improve. As long as you did the same thing as yesterday, and did it with a smile, that poison could sink and slow my thoughts and worries. That poison could blind and betray me, into thinking it was fine to be content with this. All was fine if you were fine, after all. Wasn’t that the fact? If the habit was harmful, you wouldn’t be able to smile. If something was wrong, you would be able to tell. You, always so sure and in control of yourself. You the calm. You the collected. You who never drank enough to lose control, despite the fallen cans and bottles, despite the restless nights.

And me, who saw that smile and let your certainty convince me.

I knew how alcoholics acted, after all. No stranger to drink, or to being drunk. How many nights had I joined you? Finishing my own bottles as you forgot yours? How many nights had I had something just for myself? Or with friends? Or strangers? We both knew how alcoholics acted, and we both knew we’ve never acted in such a way. We were always smart about it. We were always in control.

Weren’t we?

Was I? Ever?

Because I know you haven’t.

You haven’t and you’re still convinced that I’m wrong. You haven’t and you haven’t believed a single soul who’s confronted you. You can’t finish a can of washed out beer before leaving it somewhere you’ll never find again, only to grab a bottle of something no better and do the same, and the same. Again and again and again again and-

-and the restless nights of drunken dreams and flimsy bladder. And the mornings of headaches and a dozen snoozed alarms. And being unable to remember the movie you wanted us to watch, unable to stay awake long enough to know a single thing that happened. I didn’t know I liked historical films before you, but now I don’t know if you ever liked them at all.

I made some friends who like history though, while I was away. I made some friends who can go a night without drinking, but can also drink and know when to stop. Months of work made passable by these friends and the thought of coming home, the thought of seeing you with a nice check in my hands, to do together what I couldn’t do with others. Wouldn’t that be nice? Time away? Time off? Just a little bit. A couple days without coming home tired. A couple nights without beer to forget the days. Wouldn’t that be nice?

No?

No, no that wouldn’t be the norm. No that wouldn’t be habit. It wouldn’t be what you were content with and complained about and smiled through and claimed would change. Months gone and I swear all you’ve done is all you’ve been doing as long as I’ve known you, and it’s all you want to do for as long as you’ll be here. And you’re fine with that because you’re sure you’re in control. You’re sure everything will change exactly when you want it to, because no one else could know you better than you. It’s a kingly confidence you have, and I believe I was once in love with that, once upon a time. I believe I was once in love with you.

Now I’m- Now I’m just afraid that I’m the same. Sure and convinced and content despite my disaster. It could be true, couldn’t it? We have lived together for years and only know do I see what that has meant. Now I don’t leave cans and bottles all around, and I don’t have to wake three times each night from all the beer. But I thought both of us were fine for so long, despite your faults.

So what have my faults trapped me in?

What habits and messes am I so convinced I can control, but bow to every day? I don’t know. God I don’t know. No one has told me or will tell me. Or perhaps they have and did, and I laughed in their faces as you do! Perhaps someone has reached out to me and I pushed them away like I only now realize you have done! I don’t know! I don’t know.

I just know it’s five o’clock somewhere. I just know that’s your favorite joke, beating the one about King Frederick you used to tell when we were dating. I’ve forgotten how it goes.

I can’t forget five o’clock though. Not when I’m standing here in the morning, when the sun has barely risen. Not when you’re telling it to me again, drinking stale beer from a bottle you somehow rediscovered, lost on the table two days ago. It’s always five o’clock somewhere dear, you are right. Good morning by the way. I need to make sure I’m not the same as you are, dear. I need to make sure I’m not trapped and in denial. It looks like this morning is that time.

Good morning by the way. I loved you. Good bye.