Reminded by Portugal 3 Denmark 2, Group Stage, Euro 2012 (Revised 6-3-22)

 

Reminded by Portugal 3 Denmark 2, Group Stage, Euro 2012 (Revised 6-3-22)

 

You get used to things
And
In so doing

Assume

Some things
Must be

And can’t be changed, that to even try would guarantee failure & looking foolish for it.

June 2002
I’d become used to

Toilets full of blood I couldn’t explain

Nights bereft of memory

A life of neither hope nor direction

Mornings of “Whose blood is that?”

And

“Do I have any friends left?”

And when my drinking failed to kill my unnamed hurt
I hoped it would kill me

But it failed to do that.

I assumed that there was no other way
No possibility of my sobriety

But I had no other ideas left to try.

So I spent several insomniac nights
Channel-flipping
Chain smoking minutes
My drying blood turning liquid once more

Cop Shows
Sit Coms
Politics
Reruns
Infomercials

The 2AM Litany of Loathing

The background noise of a certainty that this was doomed to fail
I was sure to die of drink.

Cop Shows
Sit Coms
Politics
Reruns
Infomercials

Why bother drying up? Dammit it’s too late to buy whiskey…

Cop Shows
Sit Coms
Politics
Reruns
Infomercials

Soccer.

Stupid drunk: you forgot the World Cup was starting. Is this a repeat? No, it’s in Asia! It’s live at 2AM! Hope?

USA! Vs

Portugal.

We’re fucked. Portugal are tipped by some to win it all.
We’re going to lose, and I’m going to die drunk.

But USA won

3-2

I accepted the challenge,

The gauntlet thrown by our National Team doing what was assumed they couldn’t possibly have done,

And I have done for myself
What I assumed I couldn’t possibly have done,

And have done it now for 10  20 years.


Chris Walters, June 2012  2022