Off The Wagon

You had your first drink in ten years at your twenty-year high school reunion. The minute it hit your lips the world turned as golden as a sunrise. Someone hit the reset button on the Nintendo of your life. Suddenly, the past twenty years never happened — you were refreshed, rejuvenated — you were starting a new game. The future was a hallucination that you’d banished with a single shot of tequila. You were waking up, you’d fallen asleep and dreamt horrible things, but you were yourself again now, you remembered, just clicking along, tick tick tick, the witticism and the banter and the coy flirtation, it was all there. Right where you left it. It was like you never graduated, and you never went to college, and you never had to get a job and be late on the bills and break a lease to get away from that boyfriend that hit you and end up with shitty credit and you never had to take antidepressants and you never became an alcoholic and you never bottomed out and ruined your life and you never went to rehab and you never had to face the shame of knowing how badly you fucked up the last game, the shame of knowing that you’re no good at this, that you are not cut out for living a Responsible Life. You forgot all the lessons that taught you to be sad. You were never disappointed with the world or with the people in it or with yourself, because the disappointing things never happened. A shot of tequila or three, that was all it took, and you were invincible again — you were a queen, a goddess — you were in charge of all this shit, motherfuckers, and someday you were going to claim your inheritance and just fucking own it. The future never happened. It was all still waiting to happen. You were so young — you were so foolish — you were completely unremarkable — you were beautiful.