The Crusade (originally posted to Alternative Reel on 4 May 2010)

Many people use the phrase crawled into a bottle....I like it. I think it works. I did crawl. On hands and bloody knees...Through pits of desperation and despair so poignant it made me wanna puke. I can remember that first drink. That first true drink. Not Wine at a family dinner, or champagne at a cousins wedding, but the true embrace of liquid hope. It was a shot of cheap blackberry brandy. fucking disgusting now that I think about it.I remember feeling the warmth spread down my chest and arms. A feeling of superiority took over. I was invincible, unstoppable. That night was full of such awful randomness as the drinks poured, and buffoons laughed into the warm summer night without a care in the world. Foolishly dismissive of our fates. I tackled a line of fucking trash cans that night. Drunk called every girlfriend that ad ever had the bad luck and misfortune to know me. Dumb cunts. Should have realized what an asshole I was. A new man was born that day. Bolder. Edgier. Hornier. Everything changed. The world bore colors I never knew existed, a fat chick never looked so beautiful and obtainable. I was a pioneer in my own mind, setting forth alone across this drunken plane of debauchery, without a second thought to consequences. My step was giddy, my heart light, my horizon endless. I marched forward with this tomfoolery, to a land of brutal vomiting, headache mornings, awkward aplogies, and beautiful sweaty memories of wet pussy in random friends houses. It was a glorious union, this blessed substance and I. There were never two better friends. Then the journey was over. My fellow pioneers reached their destination. O' my brethren how I fucking envy thee. They laid down claim, bore children and memories. Went on fucking ghastly horrible vacations to the American Middle. But I refused to stop walking in this awful landscape. One by one they sloughed off, until I was truly alone. I sludged by, a true monument to the original dream now living dangerously outdated. I saw their happiness through eyes pinched shut by a brain constantly under the violent onslaught of a beverage hell bent on its ultimate destruction. I am all alone now. Feet bloody and mishapen from my tragic search. what the fuck I am looking for....The others found it. Why was it so easy for them? Or was it all a ruse, an elaborate deception constructed by those desperate for the peace and comfort of a soft bed, and a warm pair of tits to share it with? time will tell. But still I walk. Stumbling really, now. The booze isnt as special as it once was. The feelings of invincibility have escaped me. The strength of the dream has fled as well. I still only walk in this fucking wasteland under a blind hope....That eventually the horizon will end...That there will be a exquisite blue sea awaiting me...Full of Large Breasted mermaids holding jugs of good booze. Keep fucking walking man....You made an oath witihin on that first drink. And you can't quit now...

We are all our own pioneers on this fucked journey. It is our drunken obligation to veer off that twisted path of normalcy. Drink the shitty booze. Fuck the fat chick. scorn your friends and neighbors. embarrass your parents. we all owe it to that pioneer spirit.

Bless you first drink, first covenant with an unholy crusade.