Ninety-Proof Truth

Night hums like a streetlight—steady, lonely, gold.

Your name sits on my tongue like a prayer I’m scared to hold.

We keep circling the same argument, kitchen tile cold as truth,

Your eyes throw little thunderstorms, mine hide behind the roof.

I measure pain in ounces, pour patience over ice,

Barrel-aged confessions, smoke around the price.

I swirl the glass and watch our years climb up the sides,

See the rings like the tree we promised we would never divide.

I sip a little courage, it burns a neon path,

Where every sorry that I owe you does the painful math.

If the storm lives in my chest, this bar’s a lighthouse flicker—

It shows the rocks, not safety; it’s signal, not the anchor.

Your silence is a mirror I keep breathing on for heat;

I want the truth neat, but I’ve been serving it on the rocks too sweet.

Found clarity in a whiskey bottle, 90-proof truth in the dark,

It told me I’m losing you softly, line by vanishing mark.

But I’m fighting for love in the daylight, hands up, no camouflage—

I’ll trade my glass for a promise, and my pride for a charge.

Clarity in a bottle showed me where I went blind—

Now I pour it out for the morning and keep you in my mind.

Your heartbeat in the hallway—metronome of leaving shoes,

I hear the future packing boxes with the fragile news.

My anger’s just a parachute that never learned to open,

And every “fine” we ever said was really something broken.

I kissed you like a vow once, before the labels peeled,

Before my mouth learned bitter notes a barrel couldn’t heal.

I’m learning to be sober with my sentences and hands,

To meet you in the open, not behind a grain of sand.

If love is twelve rounds honest, let the bell be what we keep—

I’ll lace my words with mercy, let my arrogance sleep.

No more drinking from reflections, no more bargains with the night;

I want the water of forgiveness and your shadow in the light.

Found clarity in a whiskey bottle, 90-proof truth in the dark,

It told me I’m losing you softly, line by vanishing mark.

But I’m fighting for love in the daylight, hands up, no camouflage—

I’ll trade my glass for a promise, and my pride for a charge.

Clarity in a bottle showed me where I went blind—

Now I pour it out for the morning and keep you in my mind.

Count it—one breath, two breath, three: say everything you mean.

Four: lay down the armor where the dishes used to clink.

Five: let the quiet hold us without reading from a drink.

Six: call me by my first hope, not my latest weakest link.

Seven: if I slip, I name it. Eight: if I fall, I stand.

Nine: if we break, we bend back. Ten: I take your hand.

No choir but your whisper, no skyline but your eyes,

Let the night keep all its bottles—our sunrise is the prize.

Daylight cut through the bottle, showed me where to start;

I fight for us in daylight—open hands, open heart.

Clarity was the warning; you’re the choice I pursue—