It was, you said, your very last, <br />and that you could, without a doubt <br />take it or leave it, any time at all. <br />Just a cute habit, acquired in your youth <br />and kept like an intelligent companion. <br /> <br />When years of proper foods and medicines <br />could not erase the fusel oils of spirits <br />you made some stops, unscheduled ones, <br />inside the institutions where they looked <br />and probed, and frowned and preached. <br /> <br />They were not schools, of course, not really, <br />and no one could expect you to obtain <br />new knowledge, even some of benefit to you <br />in such a place, where fumes of formalin prevail. <br />So, you were right, my friend, that bottle was your last.<br /><br />Herbert Nehrlich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/that-last-bottle/
