There are eight cigarettes
smoked down to the filter lying
dead on
the carpet, monuments to the weight of
your absent flesh; orange and
ashes still hang in the air with
hazy memories of your nicotine
skin and the smoke
detector on the ceiling winks
and blinks in my direction, taunting
and devoid of your black,
matted eyelashes. I try with the
power of memory, lying
on the carpet, stunned and pained in
the wake of your touch, to break it.
I want to see it shatter. I hate it,
just the way I hate the first and last cigarette in
the pack, the first and last
memories in the photo album.
I want your breath
to come pouring
into the room like smoke, thick, suffocating,
grey, incarcerating you in another
flowing body
while I lie there, sinking
into the carpet,
feeling its roughness on my back and the
warmth surrounding me,
blood seeping out my pores, grinning, sardonic,
laughing, smoke swirling around
my head, my hair, melting
into my ears and
I reminisce the times we would
lay out in the playground, woodchips
under our backs, smoke replaced by
cool, soothing air, and the feel of your fingers running
across my cheek, mesmerized
by the burning scrape
of your lips on
my knee, my knuckles, smiling, unmoving. Inertia
keeps me safe and
I blow kisses to the
fading sun chased
by the graying clouds, smoke always
right behind. I can laugh
until my stomach hurts. I remember when
it was enough—to be
happy.
--Molly Herrick 11.22.02
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