Seasick Yet Still Docked

 

He sleeps beneath a fractured sky,

wrapped in a coat that remembers

better winters than this.

Cardboard beneath him,

concrete against his bones,

the city humming past

like it no longer knows his name.

 

Once,

he wore a uniform

pressed sharp as duty.

Boots polished.

Back straight.

Heart still naive enough

to believe survival was the same thing

as living.

 

He learned new languages there—

the crack of gunfire,

the whistle of incoming fear,

the silence that follows

when someone beside you

doesn’t answer anymore.

 

Some things came home with him.

Invisible things.

Things no airport scanner catches.

The smell of burning flesh.

The faces he couldn’t save.

The weight of his own breathing

in the dark.

 

At first,

the whiskey was medicine.

 

A small amber mercy

to dull the edges,

to blur the dead into shadows,

to trick his hands

into trembling less.

 

One drink became two.

Two became ritual.

Ritual became religion.

 

And soon

he wasn’t drinking to forget.

 

He was drinking

because not drinking

felt like dying.

 

The bottle became his closest comrade—

always waiting,

always forgiving,

always lying.

 

It promised sleep.

It promised peace.

It promised quiet.

 

But promises made in glass

shatter easily.

 

Now he drinks

and nothing disappears.

 

The memories remain.

Sharper somehow.

Crueler.

 

The dead still visit.

The nightmares still march.

The shaking still comes.

 

Only now,

his body joins the battle.

 

Liver swollen.

Hands betraying him.

Mouth dry as old regret.

A thirst no water can touch.

 

The bottle doesn’t save him anymore.

 

It only keeps him

suspended—

not alive,

not gone,

just drifting

between the man he was

and the ghost he’s becoming.

 

People pass him

without seeing the war.

 

They see dirty hands.

Tangled beard. 

Cheap vodka.

Muttered apologies.

A man collapsed

outside a shuttered shop.

 

They don’t see

the medals 

sold for booze.

The old wedding ring 

he pawned

for another half bottle. 

The son whose birthday

he can no longer remember.

 

They don’t hear

how he whispers “sorry”

to no one

before every drink.

 

Tonight,

rain gathers in his beard.

 

His fingers clutch

the bottle like a final prayer.

 

But even prayer

has stopped answering.

 

And somewhere beneath

the wreckage—

beneath the alcohol,

the trauma,

the shame,

the ruin—

 

a Royal Marine still remains.

 

Exhausted.

 

Wounded.

 

Waiting.

 

Not for another drink.

 

But for one small reason

to believe

that even after all this—

after the wars outside

and the war within—

 

something in him

might still be worth

bringing home.

 

Jonah Libertine Gill

©️Libertine13

24/05/2026