Message in the Bottle (Prompt: Message in a bottle poem)

I drained the first bottle

looking for the message.

It was fun,

but I didn’t see any message,

so, thinking I had

a defective one,

I drained a second bottle.

The second one felt good

right away,

so I didn’t mind

draining a third

in search of that

ever elusive message.

Years passed,

bottles fell,

and nights wasted.

I don’t remember

when it stopped

being fun,

but I realized if there

was a message waiting

at the bottom of the bottle,

I was too damned drunk

to see it.

When I drained

the last bottle

just before midnight

February 10, 1990,

a message finally made it

through:

“you can’t handle this.”

It wasn’t profound,

but it was honest,

and, thankfully,

I haven’t handled it

since.