disclaimer: because I started writing about smoking cigarettes but it sounded a lot more like falling in love


i wish i could spit the taste off my tongue as i breathe in,
but it lays stale and heavy in my mouth.
your hand grasps my shoulder, body leaned forward
your lips wrapped around a cigarette and i wonder:
does your mouth taste like my mine?

the smell will never leave this house.
you hold me close on a couch,
breathing air into my smoke.
your hands fumble, drop a torch on an already abandoned floor
and run your fingers through my hair.
i don't mind the smell later, it follows me for days.
for you, it takes three washes
for me to be erased.

my arm barely feels the pain as you flick
your last cigarette at me. the ember fades
into the snow as you walk away.
i've barely finished mine and
for some reason, in the dark
the tension in my lungs
never lets up.


i'm laying in an empty bathtub, fully clothed and
i can't stop yelling out about how much i love:
"i need a cigarette! can I smoke in here? please can I? please."
i can't
and
i grasp the sides of porcelain, weeping for linoleum,
trying to get outside, closer to you
because my mouth tastes like nothing and if
i could get the taste back, maybe i could get the feeling of
you back into my mouth and hands and

when i go outside, no one has a lighter
and i remember you always lit mine.