Free Verse: "Phantom in a Bottle"

All I knew was what I believed

And all I recalled was what I saw

I saw my reflection on the bathroom floor

And I believed there was a bottle by the door

All my head was logged in gin

So much, I felt it seeping from my skin

But I felt as dry as a cigarette left by the street

And as empty as the bottle by the sink

The first sip of that bottle was the last of me;

I felt the spirits of every drinker who'd ever been here

And the phantoms of what I'd done on last night's beer

At a table of ghostly friends who raised glasses to cheer

I took a drink for every absent spirit

And bought a round more for the friends from before

I poured some for the ghosts that clouded my thoughts

And walked with the phantoms and the wrongs they brought

I slurred to them of how much I'd like to hibernate;

For all the night's I'd grown tired of being awake,

And for all of the bottles that I couldn't remember

So I drank some more on the bathroom floor

All I knew was what I'd become

I knew I'd become one of the phantoms