The smoke rises from the cigarette
she puffs as if moments from her life
were floating away.
Each puff tearing away another fragment,
every story stripped away from her.
But she needs it.
Like some sort of
magical elixir
that maybe, somehow, might ease the pain.
Her paper heart has been duck taped back together
too many times;
there are holes where her love should be,
filled with alcohol soaked corks and anything else that could
heal her fragile heart, white with powder.
She snorts lines of hope on her dresser in the morning,
little crystals that shine brightly in the sun, neatly clumped like long rows of sand in the desert forming long hills. Eventually, she thinks, I'll be free of this paper heart.