There was a time when he’d fear nothing more than the bluntness of the empty bottle
his torment his nightmare, his hell
The bottle would be all right as long as it stayed full It was like Lucifer before the fall
Oh, but once it emptied then it would change completely Then he’d see father’s grip reverse on its neck and turn it into a blunt weapon that delivered its fair share of bruises and scabs on the scalp
It never broke like in the movies but it surely hit harder than wood
But in the end after all those years of standing in its greenish shadow he found himself thanking the bottle
It’s simple What you don’t pick up you don’t end up holding
He never touched a beer in his life
and certainly didn’t use the bottle as a blunt weapon against anybody
“I don't take a lot with me when I go cave exploring,” she said. “And I do go quite often. And I do go quite deep. It's because I always manage to find something there. Not something material, but a feeling. It's hard to explain. Like Mother Earth herself holds you in a very tight embrace. Like she's squeezing you back inside the place you came from. And above all, there's of course the thrill. The thrill of knowing that you might no longer be able to get out of there. Ever. I love that. It's like the opposite of claustrophobia. I get aroused by feeling trapped. Squeezed. About to have the air squeezed from my lungs.” And there was no one, not her parents, not her friends or the strangers she spoke to over the internet. No one who could convince her that on her last trip she didn't…