Relapse
by: LC Gutierrez
We thought he had the hang of living
when it reached up again. Caught him
cold and naked, dripping over a drain.
Wringed it all out. A Dalí clock, sliding
off a cracked egg, a puddle of bruise.
when it reached up again. Caught him
cold and naked, dripping over a drain.
Wringed it all out. A Dalí clock, sliding
off a cracked egg, a puddle of bruise.
He felt a drink might help, but he didn’t
think. He thought one drink might do.
But he didn’t feel, he just forgot
how to breathe, and how he’d been okay
with the girl with the kitty-cat tattoo:
a wreck of freckles across her cheeks.
The fullness of himself
riding the softness of her.
And all the rounded precious corners
of a new self: a warm, hopeful clay.
A jingle in his pocket, a few bucks
in the bank, and even a little something
that could lift its head and roar
in the dark or the day. A state of grace
that stopped like the soft gasp
of an eclipse: the clutch of a claw.
He remet that bloodshot monster
moldering in the mirror.
It’s not that he’d remembered how
to drink again, and there was no reason
why. It’s just that he’d forgotten
there had ever been any Else.
About the Author
LC Gutierrez is a product of many places in the South and the Caribbean, as well as writing and comparative literature programs at Louisiana State and Tulane University. An erstwhile academic, he now writes, teaches and plays trombone in Madrid, Spain. His work is published or forthcoming in Autofocus, Notre Dame Review, Sweet, Hobart, Rogue Agent and other wonderful journals.