Dear Alcohol, My First Love Poem by Leah Ayliffe

good to see that it's limitations became apparent I think you'll do just fine in life, you got what it takes! ! ! A+ poet

This is a fresh, honest, positive assessment of the relationship between poets and alcohol, which is intimate and longstanding. The very words intoxication and inspiration are almost interchangeable. And the poet's need to attain some kind of altered state frequently involves - how else to put it? - abuse of alcohol. And your poem how you managed things deftly but also decisively when necessary. You scattered two warnings - TASTE OF YOUR POISON and TOXIC SEDUCTION - but the decisive moment eventually comes: IT WAS LIKE TRUE LOVE/BUT IT CANNOT STAY/I FEAR I LOST MYSELF IN YOU. That's a sobering realization and you prevented the HART CRANE or DYLAN THOMAS scenarios of such tragic loss. The key passage is really stirring: YOU MADE ME FEEL REAL/BEFORE I KNEW HOW TO BE REAL ON MY OWN. That shows gratitude and appreciation to the good things of alcohol but also a decisive sense of when to say ENOUGH. One writer called Poetry the Thirsty Muse so prone are poets to abuse, and at a college conference on becoming a poet, William Stafford started his spiel by saying, AVOID ALCOHOL! It stunned a lot of us in the audience. I think your poem gets it just right: enjoying the benefits, avoiding the extremes of addiction. As Falstaff says, A GOOD SHERRY BECOMES A GOOD WIT!

Good for you for pulling back, there is enough ecstasy in poetry, alcohol seduces but terrible effects it produces In moderation, a more pleasant sensation. The poem conveys your message very pleasantly.