the reluctant shrink

had s/he listened to his/her friends
who’d done their time prior
in the dives & clubs that the city
churned, or to those that were still
slinging slop to the fishes gulping down
at all hours of the day,
be it the hottest of the year or
the coldest this earth could muster,
then,
s/he might have turned round &
done an about-face,
when given a favorable response
after interviewing,
for little did s/he know that the
job of tending bar
really did entail the need for a big
ear & all the time in the world
while doing the job that you were
getting paid for,
to do one that you weren’t.

but monkey is as monkey will do &
so behind the sloppy counter s/he stands
from “happy hour” to those last seconds
of the desperately distraught last call of
the night (early morn)
when the hounds have lowered their heads
& all those with a remaining sexual pulse
have stumbled off into each other’s beds
to wake up the next morning regretting
everything they did the night before
which they can’t for the life of em’
remember now.

& like the guy from “The Green Mile,”
s/he has sucked it all in again this eve,
her/his depression quotient maxed out like
the credit card(s) s/he’s struggling her/himself
to pay off &
as the final stragglers are escorted out by the
bouncer, if they can’t/won’t go on their own,
s/he signs one last prescription for her/himself,
slugging back that last shot
in a series of pounding blasts through the night
to hopefully send her/him into
sweet abandon,
the minute that s/he locks her/his
door behind her/him
when s/he steps inside her/his
dwelling.