Requisite

Because it lives under his skin, he'll try to flush it out. A deluge to drown the parasite that drains what is vital to his identity, ineffective but proactive.

Drinking it into numbness does not remove it.

Her thorn has been left in his flesh too long. There's something urgent in the pressure now, a clever sting that only hurts when acknowledged. Inattention allows her to burrow beneath layers he doesn't want to have.

Beyond the reach of alcohol, which doesn't stop the effort.

Because intoxication means the bliss of blurred vision. If he can't see what she's doing to him, he's safe.

Salvation by inebriation. Yet he's never felt more condemned.

It's not that she seeks to change him. It's that he's changing. The process of osmosis makes him unrecognizable, less a shell of himself than a remolding. The shaping is painful, however much it benefits him.

The future and his loftier place in it shouldn't concern him.

Too young to submit. Too old to adjust.

There was a tattered perfection in the incompleteness but he's not allowed to be deficient now. And so he drinks for spite,, resurrecting old errors with every glass.

It's not surprising when he's found. Criminals know to alter the routine. He cannot.

She's disappointed by his lapse and he's distracted by her pout. She'll finish his last drink and with liquored lips she'll tug him back to maturity. He'll go because some thorns are worth the discomfort.

Sobriety is the requisite of this love.