words

i was sitting at that table
when my friend,
the groom,
stood up
presumably to make the rounds,
to do what his mind said
the proper soon to be husband
would do,
leaving me there
with his very soon to be wife,
two women i did not know
and one i had met only once
a year or so before
in a drunken mixture
of liquor and guinness
chased with cheap beer
and menthol cigarettes.

it was awful;
they talked without pause
about shit i didn’t care to hear
and subjects and people
i knew nothing about,
but i sat there
glued to that chair
by the fear
of lapsing into a moment
of insanity,
a temporary lapse in reality,
of waking up later
only to find that i had
drank every drop of alcohol
in that place,
pissed on the cake,
shit in the sink,
punched the maid of honor
and then collapsed
like a viking king
onto a table that held
so many different meats
and vegetables
and disposable forks and knives.

i had only been sober a few months
and so for me, right then,
the only way to escape the dullness
of that barbershop chattering
was to break the levee
and drown myself right there
in front of god and the bride and the groom,
consequences be fucked,
maybe trick a bridesmaid out of her dress
and then put it on myself
and tell war stories to all the children
about a war that had never actually happened
outside of my head.

but instead i sat there
and i listened
and after a while
the fear passed,
i went outside and smoked a cigarette
came back and had a Pepsi
and then my friend,
the groom,
gave me a present
for being a groomsman;
a silver flask
with my initials engraved on its front
reflecting that sunken in face of mine
right back at me,
the laughter not quite reaching my lips
but loud as all hell in my eyes.
life is funny that way.

-S.C. Martinez