Tide of the Broken Days

There are seasons to my downfall,
a tide that knows my name.
It rises in the quiet hours
when no one’s watching,
when the world stops demanding
and my mind starts whispering.

I drink like a man trying to outswim himself,
but the water always wins.
Every relapse is a winter, 
cold hands, colder thoughts,
a frost that settles on the bones
long before the bottle hits my lips.

I tell myself it’s just a phase,
just a storm passing through,
but storms don’t heal the coastline 
they carve it deeper every time.

And still, I stand here,
chin above the waves,
pretending I’m not drowning
in my own tide of sorrow.

There’s a man I used to be,
a man my daughters still deserve,
and some nights I can almost hear him
calling from the shore.

But the drink pulls harder,
like a season I can’t escape,
a curse that comes back
no matter how many times
I swear I’ve seen the last of it.

This is the era of my undoing,
the age of quiet battles,
the tide of broken days 
and still I fight to reach the morning
with dry hands
and a living heart.