What do you when you start to feel like you can’t breathe again? Your chest gets heavy, and a simple inhale hurts so bad a tear twinges at your eyes. My chest, my lungs heaving as if I ran ten miles, but here I am sitting on my bed in the dark grasping at my chest, the burning of a decade of cigarettes beating me down to the point of where if I try to stand my knees would give and I would lay an empty puddle on the cold hard floor.

A.C.

Nothing is sweeter
than waking
to the silence
of snow
of the movements
your chest makes
before the closed-eye smile
stirs
the ancient Woman in me.
I crawl into your arms
like stepping
into the sunshine abyss
of my childhood
like conjuring
the music
of my sister’s laugh
like conjuring
the dead.
Some mornings
I wake
so full of love
that it takes all of my
strength
to keep my chest
from hallowing
my ribs from cracking.
At 6 a.m.
on a
snow-covered lawn
the revelation
of love
accompanies a cigarette
and cup of
watered-down coffee.
All of the words
you whisper
my porch cowboy
are stuck to me
on a morning
so unaware
of its own
beauty.

you are made of
strawberries & cigarettes

when the smoke clears
wish you'll still be here sitting pretty

when the senses return
wish you'll still hold my hand

when the eyes are sober
wish you'll still look at me

she was your wife
she misses you
she doesn't want to just be the smoke from your lungs
escaping into the winter air
but what i fear
is that im the cigarette
that you bring to your lips
then toss out the window
when you're finished.

"I don't even feel the caffeine anymore,"
said Claudio, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth.
"Maybe you should take a break. Then, after the break, you'll feel the rush."
He took a long, slow drag.
"No point. I've felt it already."

It’s fair to say that
You are the nicotine
Running through my veins.

I adore you, while you
Are indifferent to me.

Still, I inhale.