He awakens; groggy, the room is dim
and his brain feels like a cracked rock
but might as well be one.
The regret already fills his head
and as he gathers his senses, he smells weed
and notices his closest friends sitting around him.
Bud on the stained futon across from him
and Jack, lying broken on the hardwood floor.

Battling gravity he stands, wobbles, and collapses again
onto a bed that he doesn’t quite recognize, and fights
to support his poisoned body above the ground.
A glance at his phone: 11:30, late for class.
As he tries to find his shoes and wallet, he questions his motives,
and why he battles the bottle night after night.

A step out of the apartment that belongs to a stranger,
and into the blinding sun that burns his glossy eyes.
He walks to class to regain his purity and mind,
but knows he will be practicing his youth again that night,
by using his friend’s identity, printed onto a card
that can buy him a handle of freedom and sin.