My lungs are filled with more nicotine

than the average 90 year old pack a day smoker, you see

smoking runs in my family.

And if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that all it takes is a spark,

a spark that always has the best of intentions

a spark that always was meant to help

a spark that’s always to catch a glimpse of the unknown in the dark

and then there’s a flame and an ember and the soft, hollow wheeze of

smoke.

Entering my newborn lungs because of your newborn stress born out of your

newborn wedding dress.

You just wanted to make sure you looked good.

And you should.

But now my lungs are filled with the toxins of

broken hearts taped back together

tragic love stories, more than I can remember

of men, come and gone,

And more men come along,

one’s who like new kinds of smoke

the kind that involve words like

****.

stem.

****.

****.

***.

Or how about illegal?

How about enfeebling an infant to make sure you can pay rent

because you’ve spent every cent of his

child support from your

******

sticky

divorce on

***.

****.

****.

A habit that’s taken over for too long and it’s only a matter of time before I’m…

gone.

Because every time I open my lips to breath. To dispell the smoke, the poison, to exhale, to express, my lips are sown shut with your tapping cigarrete

and gossipping nicotine

and looping heart-broken scene I’ve seen more time’s than I can count

And if this is what you’re about,

Always needing a spark

A flame

A ****

A ****.

Or any other addiction that will never last quite long

Enough, I’ve had enough.

There’s a window to fresh air that I now know you’ll never help me reach

but once I get there my lungs will sing gospels of

Love that stays.

Of drug free days.

Of a mother’s loving embrace that doesn’t involve a wheezing spark.

Most of us write
of how bitter
our first kisses
tasted

Mine
tasted like
a limited edition candy
found in an old candyshop
after three years

Like
exhaled smoke
of  your first
mentholated cigarrete

it tasted
like home
after years of
being lost

A clover green bowler hat on the cars dashboard; mardi gras beads, wildly dangling from the rear-view mirror.
A cigarrete, held by the white knuckles grabbing the wheel. A mop of lush blonde hair, freely flowing in the wind. Aviator sunglasses, sitting astride
A dimpled nose; cherry-red lips whistling a long forgotten Irish
Song of Lust, Death & Fate...

J Eduardo Ramos©

Amok-Insanity in a murderous frenzy*

My pith transcends to an encounter with your skin, amok.
Transcends to each single word been said, to any plaint been moan by a ******.
My skin it’s only a vignette of the universe, a tattooed moon in God’s scapula.
Endures to the bites of the madness, transcends to the existence itself.
My pith has wings, and it’s like the smoke of the cigarrete I’m smoking with you.
Free.

I was raised under shield and gun
Looked in my fathers eyes and grew under thumb

Theres awes for mah stalls
Hug and hold you in our paws
for the cause
we pause for this applause

I make friends
I get blown
I make friends
I go home

I make friends
and get shown
the Dark side
of the moon

skip tracks
forget facts
neural lightning
get stacked

I end my cigarrete
and grab my beer
Wander in horror
Its my self that I fear

Salty frozen pearls glimmer
in the passing, fading carlight
I keep rooted in the shadow
and stay running from mah fright.

It knocks in my head
never alone
it follows my steps
crucial loss of character
in need of a seraph
some sort of
charsimatic actor
some sort of
emblematic factor

I am not Friday evenings,
nor am I Sunday mornings.
I am more of a hot Wednesday afternoon,
when you step outside and take
another puff from your cigarrete .
Or a day that never
became a leap day.
Maybe I'm just one of those days
that take you by the throat
and squeeze just a little too much.
"it's just another bad day"
Another bad day to ask myself why the
demons I keep in jars always end up in my head.
And then you realise that these days are killing you,
inhaling what tastes like death.
Or maybe I am today.
Today sounds like a better idea.

l.m

a peach beginning upon a
snow-born face of hope for a
purer tomorrow

chewed up and spit out by
the harsh lips of a
cigarrete kisser

he had lucifer's lies and
hellfire for a heart, yet
she loved him all the same

something's can't help but crave the pain of
being
choked with feeling

like
a secret
spoken so silently
that not even god himself
can hear it

Suddenly, I had to catch my breath, I arose from my pillow trembling and stunned from a nightmare. My heart thumping incessantly against my chest. Sweat drops were streaming from my face. I gazed at the fan whirring above me and then to the flayed walls that surrounded me. I turned to the light that begged to come in from a drawn shade, half-drunk alcoholic bottles, and an uncapped night time sleep aid on my counter. It was oh so familiar: the perpetual nightmares, the same ceiling fan whirring sluggishly above me, the alcohol I used to drown my sorrows in and the pills. I was weary of the depressing ambience. I couldn’t wake up to this another night. Under my breath, while using a finger to wipe the crust from the corner of my eye I muttered "how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"

              I sauntered outside my room to the living room, grabbed a diet coke from the fridge, swiped a Malborne cigarrete and a lighter from the counter, and stepped out the door. I perched on the stairway leading to the mahogany door and lit a cigarette. As I drew the nicotine in, I started to ponder on the quickest and most painless way to take my life. after much contemplation and weighing of options, I came to a decision. I hurled the cigerette on the ground, stepped on it till I was certain I put it out, twisted the door ****, and slammed the door behind me. I unbuckled my belt as I walked into my room, climbed atop my bed, fastened the belt around my neck and hung it to that same sluggish fan. Who knew it will be the death of me? I took my last deep breath, then took a step forward without hesitation. There was a sudden grasp around my neck, and a shriek came bursting out from the tightness of my throat. I found myself six inches above the ground begging for air, waving my arms in an awkward motion as though that will somehow save me. My soul was slipping away from its body. I could feel it. I could feel a separation, and even though I had always been skeptic about whether we have souls or not, this last few minutes cleared every doubt. It was departing, that unfathomable thing within us that we sometimes describe as light or as the Hindus call it "I" was departing from its home. Everywhere slowly turned dark, even though my eyes were bulging outside its sockets. And Just before I embarked on a journey atop the coach of death, a muffled scream brought air back to my lungs and sent electric shocks through my body.

            Suddenly, there was another urge to catch my breath. I arose from an unfamiliar bed with no fan whirring above me. The walls were cream white, no half-drunk alcoholic bottles laying on their sides. But there were pills in a transparent bottle. Myriads of them stacked neatly in a cabinet. It took me a while to realize I was laying on a hospital bed. It also took me a while to discern a hand clutching firmly to mine. I turned my head slowly to my sisters cried out eyes fixed on me.