"Commercial Cancer 2"

In response to Fragile Childhood PSA

With a quick swig of a cool brew, he knew.
Alcoholism would nev-nev-never be an issue. 
Problems quickly faded, faded to a blur.
"How much is a shot," he says; then pays for four more.

So raise my hand of a glass overflowing with insecurities,
I'm sure he knows the cost of his investments.
He pays Captain Morgan more attention than his daughters.
He says, "Stop when I say 'when'."

"Don't you dare judge me!" he screams,
after his fourth or fifteenth.
And at four and fifteen his daughters have never
seen "a million bucks" sold for $180 on a bar stool tab.

But I'm 90% sure their 2 cents aren't worth a damn
to him. His soul has already been sold.
Almost 34 years ago, now 50 years old, 
At the time, 16 never seemed so impressionable.

Yet as he glares death in the eyes an image illuminates.
It's him, they claim. The demons he fears are within him.
The nightmare of children, of Freddy Kreuger, the Father.
Further the nightmare plays, labeling him the monster.

The Grim Reaper, the rabid rabbit, the zombie, masked menace.
It ends in the sentence, "How do our children see us when we've been drinking?"
How unfair, it seems, that he be so inhumanely portrayed
and suffer through horrific political criticisms. 

All the while a cancer develops, it cannot contain itself.
Those television injections infect his mind, multiplying guilty thoughts.
All the while the beach party, the masquerade, the cool brew he once knew, goes on.
These lost inhibitions, it seems, flow as freely and liberally as Liberty allows.

Who is there to cease these senseless, empty accusations?
Who is there to address the criticisms and attacks on character?
Who is there to take the stumbling, drunken step forward and say,
"I am the reason you are wrong"?

The alcoholic, the epitome of empty toats, 
mumbles, slurs, curses at an ad on the television again.
"I know damn well who I am but how others
see me is none of my damn business; and

how my kids see me is none of yours."
How drunk and wrong would be he who claims anothers character to be weak.
He who would do such, accuse the mind, would surely be out of his own.
The ends you seek juxtapose the means you use.

We'd hope to be worth more than the price on the tags on our backs,
worth more than anything anyone said we were, and 
worth more than a mere minute on television. 
However, change cannot commence if this commercial cancer is easily at our disposal.

Rash judgements will subside if regulations provide a tax rise on alcohol.
Then, drinkers will lessen their investments, as will those whose image I detest.
Fragile Childhood must see the fragility in parenthood. 
Fragile Childhood must not only see, but portray these parents realistically.

If we raise a culture taught to fear the effects of drinking,
we raise a culture of curious alcoholics destined to become
the mosters you portray. It's them, the masquerade goes and beach party hosts.
There they are, the root of the barley, the vine of the grape.

Through the demons you portray, you label me as inhumane.
However, as the children watch wondering, they become
the children you fear to raise. Unintentionally, they will grow
in curiosity and, when my time is done, fill the role left to be played.

Fragile Childhood PSA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvOcyPEI9eE