Hang Over

By: Anne Stephanie Cruz

There’s a certain comfort derived from each wave of nausea that passes; the lightheadedness, the after taste of regurgitated bile, insides churning and heaving as one doubles over and retches—only to barf air.

It’s reassuring to smell cigarette smoke in my hair, stray locks sticking to a forehead slick with sweat, traces of nicotine clinging to thumb and forefinger the morning after.

The dry mouth, a reeling head and senses struggling out of stupor are easier to account for than the how’s or why’s of inebriation. There’s no sober explanation for finding solace in a cloud of smoke and a shot of tequila--why laughter flows jigger after jigger, and inhibitions are released by hastily drawn puffs of strawberry-flavored cigarettes.

Cherry red polished fingernails bitten to the quick, tracing half circles on maple-varnished tables. Making love to Jose Cuervo, sucking in DJ Mix, we are an unholy trinity of vice passing time, purple eyes keeping watch as the black crow of the evening exits to dawn.

If only I’d wake up feeling sick, unable to remember the bitter taste old heartbreak left in my mouth. How I wish I could spew out minced words and cutlets of memories and just flush, flush, flush. But I’m one of the cursed few who never get hung over.

Tough luck.