you are the cigarette i pull out of the box every other evening
after fourty-six and five thousand strides, three underpasses
and one last pedestrian crossing

as with the cigarette, i look forward to you, look forward to
the high derived from the very presence of you
of your enigmatic entity misting through my lungs like
a sick, heady liaison akin to that of beer and smoke

but as with it which stubs out before the junction of bartley
relinquishes within me a curt perspiration, a heightened vision
you ravel my walk, desiccate my lips, augment a melancholy
that after muddy fields and an overhead bridge
initiates yet another discretion away from blurry headlights

as with the two sticks, tuesday and friday
five~, but only in selected amity
you leave traces of tobacco and filter paper
grinding between my newly dentalised set
as the zephyrs of the monsoon season **** against the spark
the bitter aftertaste of something so wrong, accompanied by
the warmth in cold of something so right