Self-Interrogation

Whether with prescription drugs, illegal substances, or history’s liquid standby avenue of escape, modern society finds its method of choice and pursues hope.

Self-Interrogation
           by Odin Roark

How carefree the traipsing inward
Responsibly free
Charging capsules
Poured golden or clear liquid
As acceptable excuse

Yet once inside
Accountability rears its head
Or heads
Never doubt guilt’s pernicious way

Whether alone
Engaged in barstool profundity
Or slumped against an alley wall
Like a magnet to the tongue
One purges
One releases
Realities better left buried

Yet

Extrication involuntarily weeps
Yesterday’s measured and careful calculation
Now but a melted glacier of ill founded confidence
A flood that will ultimately evaporate
Or find an estuary of temporary repose

One’s next morning
Via aspirin or not
Consciousness relives
What might be remembered
As progress toward…
Perhaps

For others
The hours and minutes
Seconds and milliseconds
Will be counted

Come sundown,
One’s glass is full again
Such beings peer languidly
Through reflections
Swirling memories
Determined to sip tenuously
Wanting to merely understand