Distance is what becomes of me inside of the dive bar off Auburn Road. I am swimming in a drunken green sea. The sea is not real. I am not a fish. I am in a bar, the sea is a wall, the wall is the men. It is Saint Patrick’s Day, and everyone is wearing green. I can hear man’s low voice saying Don’t pinch me, like begging. I will not pinch I will not touch I will to leave this bar. Neon key-lime-colored signs light up above the heads of those bumping into each other like haloes. Why did I come? Does beer make me a man? Why can’t I handle more than a sip of Ultra Light? Not even a woman’s beer finds ease within the aviary that is my stomach. Maybe I am an ultra light weight and I am drunk, my reality blurring like a menagerie in front of me, sick of green jostling around like dizziness, a carousel of sickly green fear. Billiard balls look like eyes resting on grass watching me, like a crazed easter egg hunt. Why am I here? Dad. Where is my dad? My dad is a man in a herd of men. My dad is a lion. Where is my dad in this pride and am I too a lion? Maybe I am a lioness or lionish. If not a lion, may I be a tiger? I leave out of the lizard skin-colored doors, puke in the parking lot, stumble home. Sleep takes me like a hand, away. I awake to a roaring in my head, knocking on my door. My dad enters before I say come in. He asks why I left. I say I didn’t feel good. He says he wishes I’d met the boys.