For Your Indulgence (FYI): The Drinking Boys

For Your Indulgence (FYI): The Drinking Boys

A Poetic Reflection on Thirst, Escape, and the Unraveling of Souls


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I. The Invitation

Come, gather, drinking boys,
Raise your glasses, lift your joys.
Feel the burn, taste the night,
Let the liquor guide your flight.

Here, under neon haze,
Lies the kingdom of the dazed.
From the streets to dark-lit bars,
Under moon and shattered stars.

Each sip a whisper, a tale untold,
Of hearts too young, of spirits old.
Each gulp a promise, a dream renewed,
Each bottle—a friend, a fleeting mood.

But what price for nights so sweet?
For liquor pools beneath your feet.
For laughter that slurs, for tongues untamed,
For bodies wrecked, for lives unnamed.


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II. The First Taste

Once it was bitter, once it burned,
But the thirst inside was unconcerned.
The first sip, the first mistake,
A single drop, a lifelong ache.

The drinking boys, they learn too well,
How bottles mask what words can’t tell.
A shot for pain, a shot for doubt,
A shot for days they dream about.

So cheers to them, the young and bold,
Trading futures to not feel old.
A laugh, a joke, a drunken dance,
A wager made on fate and chance.

A bottle clinks, a throat runs dry,
A brother falls, another tries.
One more round—just one, just one—
A game that’s played but never won.


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III. The Spirits Speak

The bottle whispers, "Take your fill,
I have the cure, I bend your will."
The glass responds with empty sighs,
The liquid pools like fleeting lies.

"Drink," it urges, "forget the past,
Your pain dissolves in me at last."
And so they do, and so they drown,
Each shot a brick that pulls them down.

Once, they swore they’d stop at one,
Now they drink beneath the sun.
Morning vodka, noon-time gin,
A cycle that won’t let them win.

The barstools know their slumping backs,
Their staggered steps, their blurry tracks.
They are known by names like Jack and Jim,
Like Captain Morgan, Crown, and Rim.

Their arms embrace the empty air,
Their nights collapse without a care.
Tomorrow waits with a splitting head,
A blurry memory of what was said.


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IV. The Losses Counted

And what of dreams, and what of love?
Lost to shots and push and shove.
And what of fathers, what of sons?
The drinking boys—they leave no ones.

A lover cries, a mother pleads,
But liquor plants its twisted seeds.
Their hands once strong, now shake with thirst,
They chase the cure that makes it worse.

Friendships wrecked on whiskey waves,
Ambitions drowning in the caves,
Of bottle depths and bitter highs,
Of sober truths and drunken lies.

They lose the fights they never start,
They pawn their souls, they trade their hearts.
Their hands once builders, hands once bright,
Now tremble weak in morning light.

Their futures glassed, their pasts erased,
A hollow hunger never faced.
And yet they drink, and yet they cheer,
Chasing something never near.


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V. The Reflection

See them now, the drinking boys,
Their laughter hollow, forced like noise.
Their eyes are glass, their minds are blurred,
Their tongues, now thick with slurred-out words.

They drink to live, they drink to die,
They drink to numb, they drink to try.
They drink for courage, drink for fear,
They drink to make the hurt unclear.

But see the truth within their eyes—
The empty space, the masked disguise.
They chase the fire that burns them whole,
They drown the body, starve the soul.

A mirror cracks, their faces fade,
The boys they were, now men decayed.
The sun will rise, the night will wane,
But some won’t ever