Smoke filled my lungs
As we sat on the porch
Swinging back and forth
In silence, neither of us daring
To break the silence
That hung between us like a curtain
Because if one of us spoke
Reality would come rushing back
And we would be reminded that
Life is pain
With every passing moment
Bringing us closer to our
Death
And though this seemed eternal
Our night together
Was doomed to die

You slipped your tongue past my lips,
clawed your way down my throat,
and buried yourself in my stomach.
You ripped the humanity from my skin, tore it off with your teeth.
Your fingers burned roads across my chest, and immolated my earlobes.
Every inch of my body was yours, and you plunged your way into it as
deeply as you could.
Between my legs, you grunted, and pushed further into me,
ignoring my face, imagining someone else. I let you paint a picture over me,
and I let you kiss her instead. Tears soaked your pillows, as you had me face down,
taking all you wanted to give. Blood dripped quietly onto your black sheets,
as ignorant to the stain, as you to any true feelings.
You made me your destructive portrait,
pouring your self disgust all over my back and face.
There was nothing left for you to hate.
You purged yourself endlessly, taking another chunk of my humanity with each bite.
All I wanted was a sense of wholeness, a sense that my body was used for your self discovery,
not a shack where you could throw away your hate.
I'd stare at the rain through your window,
and will it to wash away the mess you'd left on me. It never did,
and I would have to settle for the rhythmic breaths from you,
floating over the empty space between us.

Waiting for the call that will never come.
I die inside every hour, every minute.
I reach across the couch to grab my phone.
Before I pick it up, I pull back my hand as if denying myself the disappointment I already know.

She never lied to me, she never hurt me.
I guess she just didn't want to hear "I love you" from me.

Can't eat, unable to cry, barely able to sleep, too depressed to drink.
She doesn't know how much I hurt, and I don't want her to know either.
I'm tired of it. I can't take another crack in my heart. It will break.
So I sink into my couch, phone on the other cushion, staring somewhere at the air between the TV screen and my face.

I just want relief in somebody's arms.

she texts me
i check my pack
6 cigarettes left

i count how many i lost to my lungs
8 yesterday
not too bad.

i make my way downstairs and meet her behind our building
she's a quiet girl
thin
makes me feel like an avalanche when I talk
and all we have in common
is our index and *******
clutching softly to yellow filters

i can't hear her
all i can pick up is the sound of the ember engulfing more of the tobacco
the heat crawling closer to my fingers
it's all i can see
or hear
or feel

we burn down to the bone
we remember each other
crush the boagie
beneath shoes freckled with the scars of cigarettes past

our collective head rush too severe to take the stairs
i press the button to call the elevator
and complain about how long it takes

1
We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.

We, who taste of exotic dishes,
And enjoy fully the delights of love,
Are better than those who were buried.

We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires
On which the winds of endless autumns howled,
We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared in
paroxysms of pain.
We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge.

By sending others to the more exposed positions
Urging them loudly to fight on
Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost.

Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend
We chose his, coldly thinking: Let it be done quickly.

We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread
Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.

As befits human beings, we explored good and evil.
Our malignant wisdom has no like on this planet.

Accept it as proven that we are better than they,
The gullible, hot-blooded weaklings, careless with their lives.

2
Treasure your legacy of skills, child of Europe.
Inheritor of Gothic cathedrals, of baroque churches.
Of synagogues filled with the wailing of a wronged people.
Successor of Descartes, Spinoza, inheritor of the word 'honor',
Posthumous child of Leonidas
Treasure the skills acquired in the hour of terror.

You have a clever mind which sees instantly
The good and bad of any situation.
You have an elegant, skeptical mind which enjoys pleasures
Quite unknown to primitive races.

Guided by this mind you cannot fail to see
The soundness of the advice we give you:
Let the sweetness of day fill your lungs
For this we have strict but wise rules.

3
There can be no question of force triumphant
We live in the age of victorious justice.

Do not mention force, or you will be accused
Of upholding fallen doctrines in secret.

He who has power, has it by historical logic.
Respectfully bow to that logic.

Let your lips, proposing a hypothesis
Not know about the hand faking the experiment.

Let your hand, faking the experiment
No know about the lips proposing a hypothesis.

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision
Then burn the house down to fulfill the prediction.

4
Grow your tree of falsehood from a single grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.

Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.

After the Day of the Lie gather in select circles
Shaking with laughter when our real deeds are mentioned.

Dispensing flattery called: perspicacious thinking.
Dispensing flattery called: a great talent.

We, the last who can still draw joy from cynicism.
We, whose cunning is not unlike despair.

A new, humorless generation is now arising
It takes in deadly earnest all we received with laughter.

5
Let your words speak not through their meanings
But through them against whom they are used.

Fashion your weapon from ambiguous words.
Consign clear words to lexical limbo.

Judge no words before the clerks have checked
In their card index by whom they were spoken.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.

6
Love no country: countries soon disappear
Love no city: cities are soon rubble.

Throw away keepsakes, or from your desk
A choking, poisonous fume will exude.

Do not love people: people soon perish.
Or they are wronged and call for your help.

Do not gaze into the pools of the past.
Their corroded surface will mirror
A face different from the one you expected.

7
He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.

You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.

Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark.
You can fill them with any feature desired.

Proud of dominion over people long vanished,
Change the past into your own, better likeness.

8
The laughter born of the love of truth
Is now the laughter of the enemies of the people.

Gone is the age of satire. We no longer need mock.
The sensible monarch with false courtly phrases.

Stern as befits the servants of a cause,
We will permit ourselves sycophantic humor.

Tight-lipped, guided by reasons only
Cautiously let us step into the era of the unchained fire.