a note to myself.

Read what you write, read it and absorb it and take it all in and listen. Alcohol is not your friend. Remember that. Remember you will not like yourself the next day. You will wake up with a shame over all over from feet to scalp and you will frantically call all of the people you offended the night before. Apologize; say it was your evil friend the drink that made you do it, made you too honest in those places where silence would have been just fine. The page is a safe place to be, so visit often. Fill it with words and dots and read them to yourself out loud, shouting, whispering. Memorize the rhythms of your voice and get that down on paper. Sometimes maybe you should do this instead of leaving the house. Sometimes maybe you shouldn't even think of leaving your room. Get blank paper, computer, pen, and fill it, fill it with words big and small, abstract, ordered, just remember you need to do this. The page will not hate you in the morning because of something you told it last night. Trust me. Remember this, you can stay home some nights, in fact you should. Turn off the TV, the radio, don't even play music. Write it down. Write it and read it and memorize it and then write it some more. Do this often.