Whiskey

Inspired by the song, “Whiskey Lullaby” by Brad Paisley

Whiskey Lullaby, His Verse

He finally drank away her memory,
but not the voice.
That stayed.
It climbed the stairs at night,
sat at the foot of his bed
like regret with a throat.

He tried women,
but they smelled too clean.
Laughed like they hadn’t buried anything.
So he stopped answering his phone,
let the dishes rot,
and called it peace.

The bottle to his head
wasn’t fast.
It was ritual.
First the ice,
then the pour,
then the lie
that this was the last time
he’d speak her name
like it still meant something.

They said it was a suicide,
but it wasn’t.
It was erosion.
A man carved away by echo
and the taste of almost.

She came back years later,
not to mourn
to ask who’d been paying the illumination bill.
Saw his boots still by the door,
untied.
And wept like someone
who realized too late
she wasn’t the only one
who’d died that year.

They never found the gun.
Just a note that said
“I’m sorry I kept trying.”

Now there’s a child
she never told him about,
who sings himself to sleep
with a tune
he doesn’t understand.
Calls it
Daddy’s whiskey lullaby.


Whiskey Lullaby: Her Verse

They told her
he died with a bottle to his head
like he was just another man
who couldn’t hold his liquor
or his pain.

They didn’t say
he mailed her a letter
he never stamped.
Didn’t say he called
her number three times
and hung up
because the gift unearned felt too arrogant
in his mouth.

She’d already moved on,
or so it looked.
A husband who wore neckties,
a kitchen with bright walls,
a child she never spoke of
when the lights were on.

But guilt is a jealous god.
It waits in the corners of praise,
shows up in the eyes of men
who kiss too politely.

She kept the boots.
Tucked them in the back
of her closet
like sin wrapped in suede.

When she found out,
she bought a bottle she didn’t want,
drank until her ribs whispered his name,
and fell asleep
to the sound of her own respiration
breaking time.

They buried her beside him
even though the family objected.
Said it was unholy.
But by then
the ghosts had already chosen
their side.


Whiskey Lullaby, The Child’s Verse

He never knew his name.
Not really.
Only that it wasn’t spoken
when mom was sober.

He learned to read
from letters he wasn’t supposed to find.
Signed with a hand
that looked like his.

Kids at school said
you can’t miss someone
you’ve never met.
But what do they know
about dreams that taste like woodsmoke
and end
with a click?

Mom cried in her sleep.
Once said,
“He had my mouth
but your father’s silence.”

He found a photo once,
creased in the middle
like it had been folded
to protect the part
that used to smile.

Now he pours ginger ale
into a coffee mug
and sings himself
the tune he made up
from the rhythm
of Mom’s late night sobbing.

Calls it
Whiskey Lullaby.
Even though
he’s never touched the stuff.

Yet.