Rocket Man

Rocket Man
Its been 130 odd days now - no drinking - sober life and yoga three times a week.  I feel pure and stable and calm and so fucking normal - something to be truly grateful for.
You can do it too.  If I can - what are you waiting for?

Zero Hour 9am
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then

I would finish work after a night shift around 9am - maybe skip out the door ten minutes early if things were settled and the staff were sorted.  Then, in the car, I would speed and stop - speed and stop to the liquorstore and park just out of sight of the front of the shop so it looked as though I wasn't too enthusiastic. 

just my job - five days a week

And then wander or amble disinterestedly past the other shops and maybe even buy a paper or some other prop - hands almost trembling with excitement - and then, outside the liquorstore, cock my head and nod a bit and go in, as if I was thinking "perhaps it would be nice to have a bottle of wine over the weekend - and what better time to buy it than right now? - Nothing like being super organized.."  (Now if you know me you might already be aware that I had a stable of liquorstores I used to bless with my custom - mainly because I did not want to be seen as alcoholic - or have the sales assistant look at me with those - "you're here - again?" eyes.)

I'd be inside and look around as if I was disoriented - like I've not been in six hundred other bottle shops - and might even wander around for a bit, looking at stuff I had no interest in, tracing my finger along the front of the bottles, caressing them before we went home together and I let them violate me.  And then drift inexorably toward the $5 bottles of red wine - and pick up two and cradle them with my practiced arms and pay and be gone in moments.

There was never anyone around - like the crime was committed unobserved - like the tree never fell in the forest - like it wasn't really happening.  I was already away in drunken fucking fairyland already.  My anxiety was gone, I had my booze and had nothing to look forward to except the chill loneliness of drinking away my day.

I miss the earth so much
I miss my wife
It's lonely out in space

Twisting the top off the bottle was always rushed and less than satisfactory - like the actual mechanics of the bottle were another contrived distraction getting in the way of my drinking.  FUCK - they put it in a bottle?  Can't these things open automatically or something?  And after a long, sharp glug that prickled the hairs on the back of my neck and had me blinking - thinking it tasted like shit but it's never been about the taste - I'd set about getting everything sorted so I could enjoy unfettered drunkenness for the next five hours or so.

But usually this just meant I would end up catching myself staring out the window, or building a story around a tree or how the hard surfaces of the pavement and soft textures of the grass reflected the sunlight.  It was like that - seeing the leaves freckle sunlight onto the ground and fully immersing myself in the moment - but always drifting back to some safe haven of injustice or blame or past wrong.

And then I would go outside for a cigarette, and lean against the wall and look out on the street and see someone walking past, and slowly I would sink down onto my haunches, squatting so they could not see me.  Like I should be hidden away from the world.

and i think it's gonna be a long long time
and i think it's gonna be a long long time

I'm not the man they think I am at home
I'm a rocket man