Sober, I’m the man you’d trust with your heartbeat.
Every yes whispered, every no honored like scripture.
I’m all soft edges and open doors,
smiling wide, carrying my own weight so I don’t crush yours.
I ask before I touch.
I laugh like I’ve never broken anything.
People believe me — and they’re right to.

But drunk?
Drunk, I’m a wolf in my own skin.
A grinning shadow with no reflection.
I don’t ask, I don’t care, I don’t even see you —
only the hunger gnawing behind my teeth.
He — I — take.
He — I — ruin.
There’s no warmth in him, no love in him.
Just a black pit wearing my voice,
a monster too loud to ignore and too empty to kill.

And here’s the part that burns:
no one loves him.
Not the strangers, not the friends.
Not the man I am in daylight.
Not even me.
But when I drink, I let him out anyway —
and he laughs in my face while he burns it all down.