"I can’t figure it out.” She said.
“I like cigars,
and pretty dresses and crossing my legs.”
She paused,
then continued,
“And I like smoking cigars in pretty dresses while crossing my legs.”
She uncrossed them,
then crossed them again.
One smooth limb over the other.
Just like that.

“But I never seem to have a lighter on hand.
Could you— sir,
please light my cigar?”
“You see, I have no pockets to hold such things and my purse…
Well,
You’ve confiscated that, haven’t you?”

“Thanks.” She breathed,
and inhaled,
and exhaled;
Sluggish wisps of smoke dissipating into the air.
Just. like .that.

“I didn’t know L'homme was into women who smoke cigars in pretty dresses while crossing their legs", She said.
“I mean, how was I to know?
I only noticed him noticing me.
It was probably the way my hair was tousled like so,
Or how my lipstick shone a deep, dangerous rogue,
Or the way I sipped at my champagne…
That made him walk over.”

“But I never asked him to light my cigar
Or comment on my dress…
Or stroke my legs.
So when I whacked him up top over the head with my glass,
I bet he never expected it to shatter and split his skull like so.
He dropped so sudden, sir. I…”
Another ringlet of smoke, a sigh, an uncrossing and crossing of legs again.
“I had no clue,
what else to do,
But to sit still in my pretty dress, with my legs crossed, smoking my cigar trying to figure out...
Just how I'd committed ******.”

Grow up, they said
but even as I did
I lost some child like wonder

Now. All I could ever want
Is to grow back down.

You take pictures of books you'll never read
write words you'll never truly know
and speak ideas taken from people that did.

But it's so common
and you're not the only one doing it
it's a whole spectrum of people
creating nothing
but consuming everything.

They may be just words,
but those words belong to someone
and without the person
they act without purpose--
repeatable, but with no meaning.

So few take what they have
to mold reality into new creations
that eventually the consuming will be consumed.
Leaving only an echo of what used to be
the cacophony of life--
it will become a mass of sounds
unrecognizable to the words we used to know.

I was a better love poet
When we were dating
The anxiety to be exactly
what you're looking for
stimulated all my hibernating
thoughts
Now a good lover
But a skeptical writer

Anticipation would stir
my imagination
Now blank with a pen
To every word chain
To every verse
To every unfolding stanza
There was magic and rhythm
This translated into intimacy

But I have got a plan
I'm going to take my mind
on excursion
Do bungee jumping
so I seize an out of body moment
I'm taking on a travelling job
To miss you so much
so often
For all that love
For all the nostalgia
To burst into a word montage

There's something about the poets

That leaves them wakeful

At midnight... and thereafter.


Perhaps it's because the blackness

Speaks like artful despair

Pitch dark

With just enough silvery input

From the stars

To perhaps stir up some inspiration.


Perhaps it's the romantics' glimmer of hope

As they hold their drooping eyes open

Wishing for the constellations

To write their stories for them.


Perhaps it's that those who feel alone

Fall in love with the moon

And her solitary beauty

So they search for ways to sing her praises

Before going off to cast their own light.


Perhaps these are some of the reasons why

Poets retire late

And rise later

Drawing funny looks

From the disciplined.


Perhaps it's not quite crazy --

In fact, it's quite normal

When you zoom in on a world full of wordsmiths

Churning out art beneath a blanket of dark.

Because sleep is not our muse --

Night herself is.