The Morning After

I was a virtuous, clean-living college student when I wrote this poem. It was one of my proudest achievements at the time. In real life, I don't get hangovers like this; I just feel tired "the morning after." But in poetry I gave my imagination free reign, while using varied repetition to create a verbal fugue. I showed it to a girl I had a big crush on--an English lit major--who called it "lyric." I have never blushed so fiercely before or since...

I eye the scrambled egg with aching brain,
And toast and unstirred juice, still hung to dry,
Stabbed by dim light and whispers, supping pain
And wishing to disgorge my lungs and die.
The fork is upside-down, my scrambled eye!
And now my cortex, stirred like gin and drained,
Drips slugglishly through napkins as I lie,
Unstirred and toasted, in the kitchen drain.
All juiced and raw, my egg-white skin and I
Together scramble light and ever fain
To feign my death, or even better, die
And hanging, hang to dry, by whispers slain.
My brain so fried, my lungs so scrambled, why
Sup I on forks, disgorging gin to fry
My strained mouth and its dishcloth taste so plain?
Yet, stabbing light with whispers tied in chains,
I egg the pain and stir the unscreamed sighs;
My lungs turned upside-down, yet squished by trains,
They brain the toasted fork with scrambled I.