Poetry by Arden Hunter

                ​​Matt Hance CC




I sat down to write a poem about drinking


little flashes stand out

falling down the embankment in the rain
grass and mud spread all over my clothes
the hinges of my glasses clogged with it
disgust and disappointment broadcast from my pristine roommate

crying hysterically to the doorman
that I didn’t know where I lived
having him show me on the map
a five minute walk but still stopping to have another shot on the way

missing a Thanksgiving dinner
that I didn’t want to attend by
drinking a bottle of whiskey and 
waking up on the floor of my friend’s bar elated I had the perfect excuse not to go

a friend giving me an engraved flask
for Christmas the word MEH glinting 
on the side then using it to sneak amaretto
into my nephew’s Christening because life wasn’t going to be sweet enough without it

I sat down to write about drinking but these things are all I can remember because the whole point was to erase an existence too appalling to be considered and to speed up the slide towards the exit

I sat down to write stories about anything else but those things were impossible because to create a character out of yourself there needs to be a piece worth examining and if you erase all your memories then what can still be seen?

I sat down to write poems about knowing yourself and cried sharp tears of disbelieving laughter at the naivety of a ghost trying to explain what living used to be like

little flashes stand out
that were only escapable through means of being unconscious

or by standing back up 
and quitting it all
quitting quitting and saying

I will live this life
I sat down to write a poem about drinking and three years later
here it is here we are here I am





Waiting


when i drank
i had a mission
never knowing what it was
just knock them back
yes knock them back
keep going on
keep on

the urgency the breath
of doom some 
undefined
nightmare
was lurking
watching
knowing all

keep back
sweet dread
keep back

nothing that i wouldn’t do
evade abscond escape 
but it was waiting there for me
and never was it leaving

drinking to oblivion
shot by shot by shot
i raced it home
i lost my way
i raced it and
i lost

only later
finally
i understood the waiting thing

was me
just waiting
patiently

i waited 
patiently

​

Arden Hunter is an ND aroace agender writer, artist and performer. They have words, audio and art hosted and upcoming with Full House Literary Magazine, Fifth Wheel Press and Kissing Dynamite among other places. Find them on Twitter @hunterarden, Instagram @thegardenofarden and at ardenhunter.com.