I like to smoke
while it's raining outside.
Long cigars with plastic tips
on the end.
I hand pick them
each time I
get em.
Roll them between my fingers
fondling each one
to make sure they're
just
right.

They're perfect for
smoking
during the down pour.
Makes it feel
like I finished rolling
in the hay.

The combination of
smoke
and me
between the water
causes my gears to grind.
Searching the floor for
that lost puzzle piece.

I like that.

Nothing matches that feeling
of rain and smoke
and your mind going.
No, voices in my head
or prescriptions
no love or attention
from a man.
not the income
I make
or **** lingerie
I wear from time to time.

What can hold a candle
to this shower
is
writing.
nothing compares
to it.

keeps the clouds
full,
fat with
dehydrated
water.
Gives the lions
something to lick.
Makes the dirt
rich with mud.

Writing is better than
any therapist,
the best lover
parent
and friend.

That's why you're here
to read this.
That's why I write
hundreds of poems.
You already know too-
how writing is kind
bitter-
salty
or sweet.
I want to end
this one sour

My cigar is out
the cherry hit
a metal chair and
fell to the ground
my naked foot, exposed
burned.
The rain
snuffed out the rest
of the ember.
leaving a black mark.
Just thought you'd
like to know
*******.

One cigarette to my name – a
Last crackling ray of sad brevity, inspired voraciously
Like a Hail Mary for an epilogue of warmth.
Embrasuring the atmosphere with its release;
She's the grace at the tail of a long day.

A lighter in my hand
Cigarette in the other

My mouth hurts like knives
And my stomach eats at my insides

The tiny stick catches flame
And smoke rises with my pain

I inhale the relief and waste
And whatever else it contains

It’s a tiny minute fire
Like my dying desire

To die in a six foot deep ditch
With nothing but my pack of cigarettes

And a busted overused lighter
I hope it catches my body on fire

When dirt covers my rotting corpse
And flora starts to grow

Don’t put a gravestone over me
For I do not have a name to be known

By the world the life and sun
It can’t get me anymore it can’t make me want to run

I hope flowers grow over my body despite the fumes
Like the smoke and soot that I consume

I never told you
I don’t like the cigarette smoke
But bitter kisses taste better than ghosts

There's one thing that's perfectly clear.
I have been smoke-free for one year.
The last cigarette that I smoked was in 2023 at 11:45 PM on New Year's Eve.
I stopped smoking and you can quit even though it may be hard to believe.
Please let it be your New Year's resolution to stop smoking.
I was able to kick the habit and so can you and I'm not joking.

_

Do our lips & fingertips ignite
the searing heat of our kisses—
like glowing embers of a dying fire?

Your tender whispers linger,
a constant flame that consumes me.
Every passing moment, the chasm between us widens…

The fire of longing blazes within me in your absence,
it blazes even more fiercely when you are near.

Calm of youth; adolescence yet to bear its fruits from within
Hitherto a descending world, before clear lungs of only air
Tales of a beast who induces slow ignorance into the minds of many circulate to he, of whom the journey will be, and the mistakes that come along.
The clear rosy membrane felt but not seen, lungs clean of filth.

Pride of growth, to when the brave warrior stood tall and mighty at his ripe advent of thirteen
Sword in his hand, braced the lair of the beast – of many things within him, porcelain lungs untouched
The vessel of breath - of he who dreams of a golden life upheld with fantasy - yet to waste
And after it all, he who’d take his last clear breath.

The worst risk taken; the quiet storm within his body aggravated
Curiosity takes the form as a metallic thing, like him a body unravelled
To the pressure of peers and the societal trend, he finally recollected the words of the beast:
“I bring only harm to the one who dares my presence, I do no good.
Breathe in my breath, I tell you. And allow my venom to silently take over.
All quarrels pulmonary may spiral up, the flesh pink balloon gone.”
Ignorance takes the form of the latter who ignored the beast's words, and thus curio turned to addiction.

The atropos of his own body lay on the bed of his imminent death.
The name of the beast was concealed, but the high and wise simply addressed it as a cigarette.
Classified a small beam of grey, enclosed within a poison baneful in every essence.
The lungs he cherished so deeply fragmented, shattered, dead.
Phlegm coughed out dust, an aching pain in his larynx
Bile accumulates and pleads to be released
The body once pure now susceptible to the most microscopic curses
Health in jeopardy, and all feels like a life sentence    
Akin to that of an elder, his lungs crumpled. And like the debris of igneous rock, the color of ashen nature
Health to be gone, health in peril
As to him, oxygen was an unobtainable dream held on a golden pedestal.
And like the millions of others that came before him, he became a victim of the beast’s ways.

The acrid scent of burning cigarette fills the air.

I hate that smell.

It sears my lungs.

I still remember how much I hated Cigarettes as a kid.

Yet, I glance at the pack, still full, and pull one out.

I place it between my lips and light it.

Do I love this? Or am I simply trying to convince myself that I do?