**Don’t Sit Down** No. No. Don’t. Don’t you sit. Sitting’s how it gets you. Sitting’s how the room wins. I told the glass I was fine, the glass said prove it, the glass is empty, I’m not empty, I’m loud, I’m leaking, I’m still in the building, that’s a kind of proof. Listen. Listen to me. I had a reason. It was in my mouth. It fell out between the second drink and the one I don’t remember ordering. Somebody laughed. I laughed harder so they wouldn’t get there first. My hands are doing that thing again, the little earthquake, the little tell, shut up, hands, we are leaving. The bartender knows my face and not my name and that’s fair, that’s fair, I don’t know my name past the third syllable either. He says that’s enough. I say enough is a door and doors are for people who still have keys that work. Cut me off. Fine. Cut the night in half. I’ll take the ugly half. I’ll take the half with the sidewalk in it. *Don’t sit down* *Don’t sit down* *The floor is a liar and it wants you flat* *Don’t sit down* *Say it ugly, say it wrong, say it twice* *Don’t sit down* Outside the neon’s got a stutter. Or I do. Same difference. The curb moved. I saw it. I put my foot where the curb was supposed to be and the curb had opinions. Caught the wall. Wall didn’t ask what I was doing out here talking to myself like the street owes me rent. Good. Walls don’t get a vote. I am talking to the dark because the dark is the only one still standing here and even the dark looks like it wants to clock out. Too bad. Clock out later. I have an address. I said it wrong. I’ll say it until it recognizes me. Left. No. The other left. The left that still goes somewhere. My phone is dead. My pride is somewhere back by the stools, face-down, somebody can have it, I don’t need it for the walk. I need the walk. I need the ugly little drum of one foot and then the other foot and then the swear word when the foot misses. That is a plan. That is a whole plan. Don’t dress it up. Somebody’s name keeps trying to get out. I swallow it. It kicks. I swallow it again. Not tonight. Tonight is not a confession. Tonight is a corridor and I am the thing that refuses to lie down in it. If I throw up, I throw up forward. If I fall, I fall in the direction of the door I already paid for with worse nights than this. *Don’t you dare* *Don’t you dare get comfortable* *Comfortable is the grave with better lighting* *I am drunk and I am wrong and I am still moving* *Say it* *Still moving* *Say it again until the street believes you* Home. The key. The key is a joke. I am a joke. We can both be jokes and still open something. Once. Twice. The lock is laughing. I laugh back meaner. Third time it gives, not because I earned it, because I wouldn’t go away. That’s the whole trick. Be the thing that doesn’t go away. Inside. Shoes off. Or shoes still on. I don’t know. Water. Both hands. Most of it misses. The part that hits counts. The room is still spinning and I am still arguing with it. You don’t get to finish me. Not on a night this sloppy. Not when I can still form the sentence. I am desperate. I am drunk. I am talking to a wall that isn’t even arguing. And I am not done. I am not done. I am not done. Write it on the inside of my teeth if you have to. Morning can hate me when morning gets here. Morning isn’t here. I am. Barely. Enough.
