Wrong Turn

a poem

I have tasted shame, put my tongue all the way 
To the bottom of the bottle
Forked the pink to move through stale donuts and cheap coffee and reach 
The part where you get blood in your teeth
This wasn’t a case of finding something I shouldn’t
This was something fed to me 
Alcoholic baby seeking familiar feeling

If I’d come out of the womb happy
I would have thought I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere between
The cervix and the doctor’s hand 
I would have tried to hitchhike back
Red thumb upright to block the southern sun
Dog-whistling, wanting to be
Sent back to before I was perceived