There once was a man from Zumbrota
Who'd **** down a 2-liter soda,
     Then burp up a symphony
     By Beethoven winsomely,
From the first bar to the end of the coda.

This is how it started

I shook her up
She was ready to burst
When she was ready
I opened her up
And she exploded
Thoughts
Emotions
Interests
Secrets
It was all too much
So I dropped her

That is how it ended

it seems my entire life is defined by drinks.

mother's milk out the womb.

(and maybe those suckles were sweet - it's not like i remember - but her words, for the rest of my life, certainly weren't.)

an hour-long debate, with my best friend at twelve years old - apple or orange juice?

(orange, obviously, is the right answer. we rehash the argument sometimes to this day.)

the day i turn 19, a beer in my hands.

(i'm sat around a campfire with my closest friends, birthdays all older than me - the beer tastes disgusting, as cheap alcohol is, but i'm glad to be there.)

yesterday, i had 1 coffee and 2 mugs of lemon honey tea, 4 glasses of water.

today, no tea, but 2 cups of coffee, a glass of milk, and 3 glasses of water.

i bite at my nails when i'm nervous, swallow down the spit that comes with it, the bile that rises.

last summer, i visited pei, had a raspberry cordial - my favourite drink to date - then bought a case of 4 more to take home with me.

last summer, when i lived in new brunswick, my friends in the same building knew me as the one who would always have a drink in hand - a milk tea, or maybe a pink lemonade, maybe that obscure korean soda i liked.

when i left new brunswick, i took a photo of my 2 trash cans, of the way they were both filled to the brim with empty bottles and cans and jugs.

i still miss the apple cider they made there.

my life is defined by drinks, sips, swallows, taking five minutes to breathe by making myself a nice whipped coffee, trawling the internet for pretty coasters and glassware for an hour in lieu of doing actual work.

Eventually, i close the shopping tabs, take a sip of coffee, and resume with the rest of my life.

Bottles of carbonation
And bottles of tears,
Bottles of death wishes
And bottles of jeers,
I've bottled all the nasty looks
People've given me over the years.
Now all that's left to get over
Is all of my worthless fears.

Bottles of carbonation sit silently
Humming and buzzing beside me,
Sitting open on my nightstand as I
Avoid conversation with the
Other hundreds of people who try
Desperately to strain to reach
Me before my wounds ooze pus
And blood and Death comes to reap.

Drinks keep me alive through his pain
It now courses through my veins.
It's why I twitch when hearing my name,
One final desperate gasp of breath
Before I succumb to painful death.

Hello happy hour!
I see you're now reduced
to fifteen minutes of
soft drinks and
smiling depression:
simper and wine.
check that...Sprite.

But I'll drink to
nagging doubt anyway.

Cars are now a kick.
Who knew gridlock
could offer such joyride:
the drive home each day
my ******* sabbatical.

I wrote 3 letters the other day
(the handwritten, paper kind)
and feel a little
like Jane Austen.
I think she'd like Dr. Pepper,
but not Mr. Pibb.
Too foppish.

Then there's this:
the wax and wane
of life between the bed
and the couch.
There's six degrees
of separation
through the five layers
of this reusable face mask.

Speaking of masks:
"one for the money,
two for the show,
three to make ready
and four to go."

And somehow I know
I will never breathe it in
that way again.

Random curtain calls:
I'm so starved for someone
to talk to; the mail lady
had me at "hello."
I offered her a soda.
Mail order catalogs are king.
The Saturday Night Special
from the burglar alarm brochure
was my final good buy.