The Reluctant Shrink

had s/he listened to his/her friends who’d done their time prior in the dives & clubs that the city churned, or to those that were still slinging slop to the fishes gulping down at all hours of the day, be it the hottest of the year or the coldest this earth could muster, then, s/he might have turned round & done an about-face, when given a favorable response after interviewing, for little did s/he know that the job of tending bar really did entail the need for a big ear & all the time in the world while doing the job that you were getting paid for, to do one that you weren’t. but monkey is as monkey will do & so behind the sloppy counter s/he stands from “happy hour” to those last seconds of the desperately distraught last call of the night (early morn) when the hounds have lowered their heads & all those with a remaining sexual pulse have stumbled off into each other’s beds to wake up the next morning regretting everything they did the night before which they can’t for the life of em’ remember now. & like the guy from “The Green Mile,” s/he has sucked it all in again this eve, her/his depression quotient maxed out like the credit card(s) s/he’s struggling her/himself to pay off & as the final stragglers are escorted out by the bouncer, if they can’t/won’t go on their own, s/he signs one last prescription for her/himself, slugging back that last shot in a series of pounding blasts through the night to hopefully send her/him into sweet abandon, the minute that s/he locks her/his door behind her/him when s/he steps inside her/his dwelling.