bartender’s dilemma

at eight o’clock on a saturday night

in the middle of nowhere;

a lonely businessman stumbles into a haunting memory

his father used to come to this same bar

when life felt painful

and nights when his mother was crying in the middle of the night

he remembers coming here as a child, behind his father;

watching insecurity fester beneath lies of narcissism

and his father’s undeniable regret

somewhere in his heart the man always knew he was born to be a mistake

imperfect,

accidental

but he was never made to feel worthy

even when he realized

he never belonged.

the last time he was here was before his father drank away his last heartbreak;

before he climbed into a car at 1:00 a.m. and went home to an angel disguised as satan

and left his son alone.

now the son climbs

into his usual worn-out seat closest to the bartender

and calls for the bartender to bring him something strong

it’s four o’clock and he doesn’t feel like sleeping or loving or living

he drinks himself blind and the bartender caters to him tirelessly;

never mind the clock

he strokes his beard and blinks his eyes,

wrinkled from age and betrayal

at nine he stumbles out of his seat and trips on the floor.

he hits his head

and the world spins for just a minute;

no one calls a taxi for him so he just walks home

in a twenty-degree blizzard

he waits in the wind for satan disguised as an angel

to bring him somewhere—maybe to a place that tastes like home

he doesn’t know

what that tastes like

yet.

and to think,

the bartender never told him when it was too much;

just kept bringing him more

the bartender never tells the man when it’s time to stop swallowing his drowned heartache

until the man has melted too many of his thoughts in something foreign

and gone home to either heaven or hell—he can’t tell which.

and when the bartender stands in the shadows at the funeral

and watches the man’s son take his first sip of the hidden flask in his pocket

he begins to cry.

another life will become

devoted

to cramming emotions away in a crowded drawer

and to think,

if the bartender hadn’t kept unknowingly serving the man his own death

in a tall glass

the man would still be alive

and his son wouldn’t be drinking his future in a silver flask

and the bartender feels as if he is an accessory to a murder crime.

but it’s not

the bartender’s fault,

now is it?