You open your eyes around noon

The thinnest ray of sunlight peeks into your room

You feel like your head is on upside down

You’re walking on the ceiling

Your breath reeks

You go to the bathroom with the light off

Because you’re pretty sure there’s an ax slicing through your skull

Unbearable pain

Your stomach stumbles and flops just like you did when you came into your bedroom at 2am

A wave of vertigo pours over you

In the same way the beer slid down your esophagus at midnight

You feel your way down the hall back to your bed

You can’t open your eyes

You close your bedroom door as quietly as you can

And the almost inaudible sound still brings you to your knees in agony

You crawl to your bed

And you whine silently about how sick you feel

Completely aware that you’re going to go mutilate your liver in less than 12 hours

Once again

You taste acid on your tongue

Your throat stings

And you choke

And your floor is now covered with the contents of your stomach

How pleasing it must be to scoop up your own vomit and hurl it into a trash can

Again

You moan ever so gently as a cement brick comes down on your forehead

Again

And again

And again

Making your body throb

Like the beat of your favorite song in the bar last night

Like the way you chugged your last drink

The one you can’t even remember because you were gone

Your head had landed on “Planet Wasted”

Population: You from tonight and you from Tuesday and you from last weekend and you from your birthday and you from that concert last month

You travel there so often

But you can’t feel what it’s really doing to you:

Eating your liver

Clawing at your heart

Strangling the blood vessels in your brain

Cutting ties with your family

Mutilating the beautiful memories you retain

All for what?

A night out with the guys?

An opportunity to loosen up and snag a pretty girl?

A holiday that you don’t even care about?

Getting a break from a long day?

Will it be worth it when you wake up tomorrow with a dastardly hangover?

Will it be worth it if you don’t wake up at all?