the oil painting.

a few days ago: maybe i’m not really an alcoholic. 

my brother shows me a painting he’ll recreate with charcoal.

and then i remember the cunning, baffling, and powerful.  i remember her saying i didn’t lose my job but i lost myself.  i remember being that skeleton—eyes and vision and life concaved—and my memories shatter the thin veneer of self deception.  i am an alcoholic.  i am never cured of the disease; i am granted a daily reprieve.  and i always have to start off my stories just like the rest: admitting powerlessness.