Poetry by Katherine Boecher

Lee Coursey CC




BACK DOOR DRINKING 
​
He’s split by his addictions.

Hiding the wreckage
while his world keeps trying
to fix what it can’t see.
Still, people sense it--
hushed trauma under the skin,
the kind a church might label sin
if it didn’t understand the body.

Gold in the glass scrambles him,
Still, he raises it without hesitation.
His balance shifts.
The past drags itself back inside
like a stray he keeps feeding.

He sleeps on top of the sheets.
An unconscious prayer to silence the dreams.
The busted pieces
of some old vision of a life--
the kind daylight can’t recall anymore,
not after all the forgetting.

No wonder he never speaks of his dreams.

And me--
Nineteen, believing I can escape it.
I build my own lookout,
a tree-house stakeout in the sky,
acting like distance saves me,
acting like I’m not just as wrecked
as the ones I’m busy
judging from afar.

I used to think nothing could touch him.
But it wasn’t water he walked on
just a sea of disease
rising around his ankles,
pulling him under
as he vanished into himself.

How many more of us have to bleed for this?
Until,
Until,
Until,
Either he
or I
cut the rope of this old family heirloom--
instead of dragging it
into one more generation.

​


Katherine Boecher is a poet and mother whose work explores addiction, family history, and the complicated love that survives them both. Her writing draws from lived experience and the long work of interrupting generational cycles. She writes about lineage, love, loss, and the quiet resilience found in the aftermath. Alongside poetry, she works as an actress and creative, weaving storytelling into every corner of her life.


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​Anti-Heroin Chic is a sponsored project of Indolent Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit fiscal sponsor. Please consider making a one-time tax-deductible donation.

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