art has
no discounts;
it creates habits
which you can't support,
it creates
leftover
cigarette buds
which are suddenly
so attractive
and smokable.
it cuts scars
right open,
makes them
ripe
for seeding,
it rots the seeds,
proceeds to
plant them
in any
visible sore
and then,
one day,
you're suddenly
decaying.

art has
no discounts,
only one form of
contract-
"sign here
to agree
to a lack
of food
and an increase
in the rate
of your
mental
degeneration".

art has
no discounts;
yet here I sit,
writing,
because there's
no
universe
without
it .

on her wild nights,
she smells of
*****,
cigarettes,
and
delicious sweat.

They told me to stay away.
To stay away from the drugs,
The alcohol, the cigarettes.

But when you force a teen to make adult decisions that have childish effects...

I find myself dealing with the drugs,
The alcohol, the cigarettes.

And the nicotine goes to my head,
The monster controls my body,
The alcohol rushes through my veins.

And I can’t help myself.

Because I’m not scared.
I’m not scared... anymore.

He drew elaborately but never nicely.
He drew flowers, cigarettes, and tears.

He drank elaborately but he never cried.
He drank beer but never flavored strawberry.

He collected his empty cigarette packets in his drawer,
like I collected the broken hearts and beaten skeletons of lost lovers in my closet.

In his black car, I looked down at the city lights at night,
while he looked in my eyes.

I let him touch my body and I let him touch my mind,
parts of me no one has ever touched or seen.
He let me delve in the tunnels where he hid his feelings, nightmares and dreams.

I never counted the days.
He took me to a zone of another time.

His upper lip was as scarred as his mind.
His eyebrows were softly arched trails for my thumbs.
His eyes were as dark as he wanted his soul to seem.
The darkness appeared on his skin only in the shape of a black tattoo of a rose that I’ve touched but never kissed.
Perhaps others have seen sparks of the little but strong light deep inside his heart,
but only I felt it with my hands and let it drown me.
Only I felt his warm tears rolling down my own cheeks.

The first time he said he loved me was the last time we talked.
He was in tears and in pieces.
And then he left me peace-less.

He was the only boy I haven’t told about love
even though he was the only person my heart had learned to love.

A fifth-wear flannel, reek and all, drifted past me today,
came and went as I sat cross-legged, marinating in the patina-ed
post-meridian.
He took one last apathetic drag from a half-burnt
cigarette.

Let it fall through his fingers and onto
the cobblestones below. Callous:
an afterthought, he ball-changed and crushed
the smoke-spitting litter
underfoot.

Left me to stare at it there,
still twisting plumes
of itself up and out, streaking, snatched away
in the wind.

Left me to watch this
wisp of him sputter its
death-throes in the street.

you’re a cigarette
people use you for a temporary fix
they use you when they’re bored
a time filler
something to put between their teeth
then they step on you when they’re all done

but sweetheart
i’m a drug
i’ll make you an addict
you’ll love how i make you feel
you’ll love how i take the pain away
you’ll love how i’m dangerous
the rush i’ll make you feel
sweetheart
i’ll make you die for me.

I raise the bone up to my two juicy lips
and I purse.
Here comes the carcinogen, the miasmic smoke,
the old ghost.

But, my
love,
it's not like it
was.

My love,
it's
not like it was.

I pick into the basalt black, like a boss.
I exhale,
mining verses from my vernacular
like
poisonous
metal.

But, my
love,
it's not like it
was.

It's nothing like it was,
and I'm perfectly fine.



In a manner of speaking.