I stand in a room with all my friends.

We each hold a cup in our hand,

& we talk,

& laugh,

& listen to the music fill the white space between us.

But there's something else in the room too,

& I can't put my finger on it.

I feel the alcohol elevate my heavy bones and tired soul,

& my mind drifts to him,

& how he won't be in attendance tonight.

I see the same look adorn my friend's faces in the pauses of conversation,

& my eyes lower to my drink filled with ammunition of sin and heart break.

Is this why we're all here?

Is this why we will drink to get drunk tonight?

I drink tonight to try to forget,

But I know the real reason is that people do stupid things when they're drunk,

So I won't feel as bad about myself when my texts and calls go unanswered.

I wonder how many of my friends feel that way under their porcelain facades.

I think all of them do.

Love is the force in the room I feel,

Or maybe the lack-there-of.

It is filled with the emptiness we all try to drown with the poison in our cups.

How strange is that we pump our bodies with depressants,

Thinking they will numb the pain and make the memories disappear.

We all lies to ourselves,

& we know it.

I look at my friends and know we don't make sense,

A room full of hypocrisy and loneliness.

We bring suffering upon ourselves,

and hundreds of thousands of others will end the night the same as ours.

Who taught us that this was love?

Perhaps we're all masochists of the heart.

I take a drink and smile.