We are stories told
through carbon bonds and
the smoky trail of cigarettes—
the distant chatter
from porches and balconies,
caught out of context
in a moment of humanity.
The faint light of
illuminated apartment windows,
inches parted curtains
unveiling another segment
of infinity.

Overlooking the lackluster glory
of Fairborn, Ohio
from the balcony of a student apartment,
the smoke from her cigarette vanishing
like the sweet impermanence of mortality,
Alena stares. Too pensive
to tend to the nearly-falling ashy tip
of her Camel Silver, our conversation stagnates.
Bonded intimately by
growing into the stumbling result
of our respective ****** childhoods—aching
for the familiarity of disaster— we find ourselves pondering
the answered question
of why we’re repeating history.

The street is nearly empty; the traffic sleeps.
Sparsely spaced cars
cruise on by like gypsy travelers.
8am is for commuters—a sensible time,
but 3:30 is for the lonely. A time to uncover
what daytime banishes
to the subconscious—
the peak time for catharsis
too inconvenient for civilization.
When insomniacs stare restlessly at ceilings,
and when the desperate tearfully pray;
when procrastinators type frantic essays,
when the chaste *******, when the stoic weep.

And then of course, there are poets like me
half-drunk on seven dollar tequila after working the night shift,
cultivating my loneliness. I can’t finish
your story for you, Alena, but I will say this:
there is a reason why advertisements
repeat their names a mind-numbing number of times.
They don’t necessarily think
you’re stupid enough to assume
their product is superior for that reason,
but they’re relying
on that one moment you’re rushed
into a dilemma, too frazzled to think.
You’ll reach for whatever name has been
shouted to you the most
just because it’s familiar. Of course,
that’s a terrible reason and not grounded
on anything sound, but something-something
caveman brain that evolved to escape
a ******* mastodon rather than
perpetuating poor life choices,
itches for familiarity.

And though anyone who says we write
our own stories has never looked beyond
the microcosm of their own apartment window
(or realized we don’t own them at all)
no one was ever prepared
to make any decision with consequence,
so of course we **** it up. But at least resist
the dark temptation of habit
like a type II diabetic before a chocolate cake.
We are stories, and the rest of infinity passes us by—
it sounds daunting, I know,
but I’ll be willing to bet that the bulk of it
is just the familiar perpetuating itself.