Alcoholism
Life was a swamp I waded through,
rolled around in the filth
like a dog obsessed with her own stink.
I was the dog nobody bothered
to bathe, and I was the caretaker
who couldn’t be bothered to care.
Below me was a swamp,
and below the swamp another swamp—
swamps all the way down.
I kept trying to walk out of myself,
to leave my muck and melancholy
for the woodland creatures
to divine. The last time, I drank
until I didn’t witness myself almost
arrested or the man I was with
tased and cuffed because we
wouldn’t leave the liquor store
that refused us service on account
of we were a half-dozen shots past
witnessing ourselves. The police
were kind to me because I looked
like a white woman sobbing
in a nice dress. My partner
in twilight obliteration did not.
The police report said
they tased him three times,
and that the night’s victim was
society. They hauled me
back to my hotel, where I woke
soaked in sweat, my stomach
a frying pan of hot grease
on the edge of catching fire.
Self-Portrait as Chrysalis
For my first solo & ensemble competition, I played
“Chrysalis” by Gustave Langenus on the clarinet
& squawked my way into a red ribbon. Here I am
in my new blue dress drinking an iced coffee
hearing that old song in my bones. Yes,
a chrysalis is an overplayed image in poems,
but hear me out. I have spent twenty years in a cocoon
of alcohol, alcohol wrapping around all my youth’s
slime & growth. I have spent twenty years
waiting to see what happens when I grow up & learn
to handle my liquor. It was a dark, dissolving place—
first I had to let go of my muscles, then my organs.
I had to liquefy everything but the most vital,
most life-supporting bits, digesting myself
from the inside. & now I am breaking through the dead,
rough skin that has protected me. Listen, I am all delicate
wings these days, so fragile as I soar.
Stevie Edwards is author of Quiet Armor (Northwestern University Press / Curbstone Books, 2023), Sadness Workshop (chapbook - Button Poetry, 2018), Humanly (Small Doggies Press, 2015), and Good Grief (Write Bloody Publishing, 2012). Their poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. They teach at Clemson University, where they were recently promoted from Lecturer of Assistant Professor. They are the Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review and Editor-in-Chief of Elysium Review. Originally a Michigander, they now live in South Carolina with their spouse and a small herd of rescue pit bulls.