Once I liked liquor more than I liked chocolate pie.
I liked barrooms, scuzzy taverns in one-horse towns.
I liked walking into the hazy layers of drifting smoke,
hearing my name spoken by voices floating
in half darkened rooms. I liked the fizzy spray
that escaped a bottle top a split second after snapping
the cap. I liked coming in from blinding afternoon
sunlight, smelling beer, bourbon, and cigarette smoke.
Most of all, I liked the stories and lies repeated from
stool to stool, endlessly, like Gospels, which they were.
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