"marlboros" poems
Strep throat. Out of nowhere really. I went to a meeting on Friday, interviewed at PaperSource on Saturday afternoon, and then just slightly later an awful toothache. I never suspected anything so out of the ordinary to occur. Saturday night, two to four a.m.ish, i thought it was caffeine pills, or not drinking enough water, or even, worst of the worst, an attack of hypochondria. I kept lighting up Marlboros though, tasty red branded things that make writer's mouths happy. Two days in and I'm pretty sure my ***** are a fever below my body, droopy like snoopy. Super soft droopy ***** that's a sure sign of a fever or a great BJ they taught us in 6th grade science, and I wasn't getting my favorite ice cream social.
I hadn't talked to the gf in a couple days, and missing her company I made the phone call only discover that my voice had turned into a baby turtle shouting English from the bottom of a stuffed baked potato. Garbled. Discussing. Useless. I promptly hung up, and began texting. But it was too late she heard me and called back, and I had to give it all I had to put together a few words.
An hour later I was dropped off at the ER, the benefits of Medicaid at 30 is never being able to just go to the doctor's office. Within 2 hours they told me it was strep. Four nurses, two residents, one first day resident, and a 2nd year resident, and the ER doctor for a swab and a spray, and the take home Z-pack.
Then she said she'd come over even though I was sick. That's real love. "If I get sick from you, it's still worth it." 3 days on antibiotics, no more sore throat, I feel great- I think tomorrow I'll be having an ice cream social for someone who I love dearly. Maybe we'll even skip the ice cream.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 9:24 AM UTC
His nicotine tongue was the most conniving part of his existence.
Every time it made contact with mine,
I tasted Marlboros,
the only brand he would buy.
Whatever his nicotine tongue
did to mine sent me into
a tornado of insanity each time,
like I was one of his cigarettes,
but he put me out,
stepped on me,
before I could burn his lips.
His nicotine tongue told his mouth
to speak such brutal words
that would make me
fall in love with him
over and over,
lighting me up and up,.
He had never kept me lit,
put me out before I could
trick him into thinking
"love"
could be a hole
he could also fall in.
He had carried me
around in his pocket,
his nicotine tongue
telling him to fuel his craving
and pull me out,
wrapping his mouth
around me and breathing me in
until I was no more.
But the more he
breathed me in,
the more his
nicotine tongue
started to die.
I was toxic.
He never did fall in love with me,
but I did end up
being the one to
stomp
him
out.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 1:41 AM UTC
the first free minutes of the day find me
scrambling for the lighter that will ensure my
good standing with a
young and dumb, restless addict
of the two-years-older-than-me generation
her cigarette hangs limp from her lips
waiting for the fire that I promised her
I had to offer
eyebrows arching
fingers followed by toes tapping
in an anxious less-than-patience
so I fumble through the pockets of my jacket
tapping fingers into gum packets
doing what I can to keep from laughing
at the whole
****
thing
until at last I find the lighter
for the babe who's smoking Marlboros
and says she doesn't care who knows
that she smokes cigarettes
Apr 26, 2012
Apr 26, 2012 at 12:55 PM UTC
you smelt of
nicotine and wild dreams
tapping your feet
to the music inside your head
that no one else could hear
& as you put away your box of cigarettes
i couldn't help but wonder
what it would be like
for you to be more addicted to me
than to your marlboros
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 7:05 AM UTC
Always some drunk ******* standing in the back of the bar who feels his life's mission is to continuously shout boisterous requests for "Freebird" during the encore.
Second hand smoke thick as English fog and deadlier than a toxic chemical spill in the middle of the driveway.
The load out and equipment set up in which the drummer inevitably excuses himself from working with any other piece of equipment besides his drums, since "there a big enough hassle on their own".
The inevitable bartering for free beer which during later years became a case of being lucky if you got your drinks at 50% off but even then sometimes you wouldn't be given a tab.
The lone dancer at the very beginning of the first set, never the most attractive lady I in the house and all too often she made it through a whole song without a dance partner. It always seemed like some kind if code, especially when an inebriated gentleman would hook up with her. But I never figured out what the jig was about.
Always a drummer in the house, the real deal or an enthusiastic amateur. They will find a way to play the drummer's kit. Don't even try to stop them, for any reason. They will play.
Likewise the older gentleman with the button up cowboyshirt, the one with the stale pack of Marlboros in the front pocket, he will try to impress you by claiming to know every song Hank Williams ever sang. The wise gambler bets that indeed he does have an encyclopedic knowledge of Hank's repertoire. Unfortunately he never claimed to have the pipes to pull one or two or three off himself...but that won't stop him from begging and soon enough he'll be under the spotlight singing "Your Cheatin' Heart" with every word and melody spot on but voice that could turn Hank's mother away. He is the anti-PR agent for Hank Williams. After people hear him butcher the songs they don't want to know what Hank sounded like singing them.
The bouncer is your friend. If such is not the case before the show begins make every effort available short of paying him your whole salary to secure his loyalty. Trust me here.
To be continued
Yep, much more to com
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 12:08 AM UTC
I only smoke
when you're around
or when I'm around you,
I don't know which is which
just that a consumption is going on
within me.
You reach down into your pocket book
and pull out a few killing sticks
hopefully,
I'll die of consumption.
That little creature
inside me,
the pink satyr,
jumps
in between my ribs,
whenever you go rummaging
in that golden shimmer of stripper's purse,
and **** out the Marlboros
with a wet-lipped,
wide-arcing
smile.
The creature,
the real me,
plays with his
satyr ****
all day
and bites his nails
and soft cuticles
until the blood runs
and pools in
little
red
pearls.
I am love-starved,
and the satyr is afraid
when he jumps
because that means you're around.
When I'm around you,
or you're around me
something smells,
possibly the iron
of the ******
left-over finger flakes.
The satyr picks up
the soggy,
spit out nails
and shingles
my heart with them.
The satyr shingles my heart
with the fear that you will leave
and that I will have no one
to consume
or be consumed by.
You are my ******
nails and cuticles.
What a ******* emo
you
make me.
I am uncomfortable,
even,
with the notion
that you have an effect
on me.
That's why I dismiss it,
with that whole
"What a ******* emo" title.
And that whole
"What a ******* emo."
last line.
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 12:15 AM UTC
4:10 AM, Thanksgiving Day
he lost his breath for good while I watched
In his thirties
lungs weak from polio and huffing Marlboros
Saturday I held one corner of his glossy box
his pricey glossy box
that was to be covered
with free soil
Some spring eve a quarter century later
the old writer
who told his tales well into his eighties
slipped into hospice sleep
and at his widow’s request
I got to hold up another corner
and place another flower
on another fancy shining tomb
Another thousand times
since then
I carried the ironic weight of lives
not all the way to their holy holes
but inch by inch towards the unknown
my shoulder sinking a bit more each time
while I searched for some epiphany in rhyme
we all bear the pall
of everyone’s fall
each has one shoulder sorely bent
regardless of who chose to repent
so as we walk with this worldly weight
someone else helps shape our fate
for try as we may to walk alone
our time is never solely our own
We are the pallbearers, pallbearers
for all
Aug 24, 2012
Aug 24, 2012 at 7:25 PM UTC
The milk man died last week. I didn't
know him well, just enough to know his favorite
chew and how much he hated Fritos.
I knew his lover and her worn-out
windbreaker, her frizzled hair as gold
as her Marlboros. I sold her a pack of silvers
once and she nearly snapped my neck.
They take (took?) their tobacco dead
seriously. She hasn't come back
to work yet, though her five allotted
days of grief are over. The empty
milk crates just aren't empty anymore.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC
The bookbag leans
on the aluminum column.
The column is blurry,
someone cleans it
only when their are inspections.
The bookbag has been sitting
collecting the sounds
that leave the Staten Island Ferry
by foot,
for God knows how long.
When you get off,
everyone looks ahead,
but out of the corners
an entire black sea of iris'
rotates to the aluminum column.
It might be a bomb.
The girl behind the Ms. Anne's counter
is skinny almost,
but her *** is too big,
almost.
Munching on the semi-soft pretzel,
you think about empty calories
and the corners of your mouth get sticky.
The Ferry won't be back,
for another thirty or so
minutes.
Somebody takes out a guitar,
and starts playing
a little Dylan. People
form a circle around him.
This is the American Pow-wow.
You reach in your breastpocket
for the Marlboros,
but you can't smoke here,
and an official looking person
squints at you,
just to drive the point home.
******* smoking laws,
some places just feel good.
This place with all it's ringy sounds,
like the guitar,
and phones beeping with texts
and babies,
deep fathers,
and high mothers.
Just to puff and puff
and push that sugar down
with nicotine would really
up this feeling of comradery.
A guy with a gold-plated shield
on his breastpocket and a blue-button down.
Walks over to the bag.
The iris' move,
people keep talking but
they're just saying words
to make it look like they're talking.
By the time the ferry
rings in baritone,
the bag is gone;
the column is still blurry;
the man is still playing his guitar,
but there's an emptiness.
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 8:58 PM UTC
"what do you think I should do?"
you looked in between your fingers and said to me
don’t be her cigarette
don’t let her light you up when there’s nothing to do and
put you out once she’s bored.
don’t be the aftertaste of chemicals in her mouth.
don’t be the black **** she spits onto the sidewalk.
don’t be convenient.
don’t be one of twenty in a pack of Marlboros.
so I left her.
you always knew what to say.
I never would have guessed that two months later
I would call you crying to say goodbye
hoping you would at least make a half assed attempt to care
with my phone in my left hand
and a handful of pills overflowing in my shaking right,
I never could have guessed you would’ve answered
with a complaint about how I woke you up.
I landed in the E.R.
like a skydiver lands in the ocean—
fumbling to unbuckle yourself from the parachute
sinking heavy in the salt water
being dragged down by the very fabric that was supposed to save me
trying to claw your way back up to the surface
like desperately clawing at the ceiling of your coffin
like lungs about to burst
like vision blurred
I was drowning
the thing that was supposed to save me
sunk me.
I sat under the florescent lights
that first night
wondering if you had called back
knowing you hadn’t
the whole week I picked at the white bracelet on my wrist
“female, 5’6”, 115 pounds, INPATIENT.”
While wondering if you cared
but knowing you don’t
But hoping you did
because it’s hard to hear for months the
“I’m not going anywhere
I love you
I’m right here
Call whenever you need it
at 3 in the morning or at 3 pm
you don’t need a reason to call if you
want to call just to hear my voice call.
we have something special
and I hope we never loose it
you’re my best friend
I was meant to have met you”—
********
You were my parachute.
The message I had from you
when I got discharged from the psych ward was:
“I have a lot going on and won’t be able to reply much.”
You always know what to say.
You pulled me under
you, heavy fabric
you, life-saving-invention
you, malfunctioned son of a *****
you—chain-smoker.
I have been one of twenty in her pack of Marlboros.
And now I’m one of twelve in your pack of Camels.
I've since quit smoking.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
Humungous pupils.
Little girl.
Attempting to realize the ways of the world.
Sinning and spinning,
she twists and she twirls,
Through the tornado that fate seems to whirl.
So sure of herself,
yet quite the mess.
Eager to learn and quickly progress.
She lays awake in constant distress,
pondering humanity's stress to impress.
How on Earth are we all alive?
Buzzing around this big beehive.
Working for life then turning to dust.
Just for the honey, our bodies we bust.
Investing our trust in invented ideals.
Shunning away what's important and real.
What ever happened to "see, touch, and feel?"
We're worshipping paper, and mountians of steel.
Our slates were clean the day we were born.
From magazine pages, our knowledge was torn.
We were taught by Barbies and trucks to conform.
And we learned about love through movies and ****
But imagine a life without fiction and wealth.
We'd all be forced to act as ourselves.
Without influence or image to compare and contrast,
we'd have less confusion about how we should act.
A society raised on make believe.
Injected with *** diamonds, and greed.
Living our lives on borrowed time,
and filling the spaces with Marlboros and wine.
But then again, I'm just a girl,
with humungous pupils in a made up world.
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 7:30 PM UTC
From Marlboros, and thinkin horribles,
Each time I think of you is another cigarette gone from my pack.
I start my pack full, I test the weight, loving the feel of a full pack in my hand,
But with every thought, they start to slip through my fingers like sand, and find their way home on my lips, where my tears just fall off and drip.
I started with 20, doing so far so good.
Wait whats that? you called?? there goes my mood.
A thought of you, a image plus two and then Im done with a few.
(17)
I choke on my fears, while I clench my hair
I called you my dear, and now im done with a pair.
(15)
Anxiety is something which I so not lack,
Giving my breath to this dwindling pack.
(13)
You feed my addiction being the flame,
my heart burns black, while it bears your name.
(10)
I sit and ponder on these thoughts I wish to behave,
Two more ignites, to feed the darkness in which I crave.
(8)
My pack is now dwindling low,
As I struggle to maintain a steady air flow.
How else can you sleep, when you've been hit with such a harsh blow.
(6)
I have clipped my wings,
after i have fallen oh so low,
in search of my name in your voice, but it is another mans love in which you sing.
This cigerette is now the only thing that glows.
(3)
(Braxton) I remember from where I came and god its a shame,
I just wish the addiction never screamed your name
Empty. Like my heart, the hollow pack crumples in my hands, wishing to be filled.
But the self destructive cycle repeats again, and again. .
And I begin my pack full, yet again testing the weight..
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 10:27 PM UTC
I hope you believe me when my I tell you my body is composed of more than a skin and bone frame.
My body is a picture book of times stained to me like tattoos of memories unable to be washed off.
If you stare closely enough my purple knuckles tell a story of walls caving in on days I can't remember.
My fingers are a light shade of skin because they have traced bodies who's pigment fell in love with my hands.
My palms are empty from receiving and giving a little more than I should of let go; some things I should of clutched onto for longer.
My arms are made of clenched embrace and have a scent of regret laced from wrist to elbow.
My shoulders hold individual carvings of finger nails and teeth marks from more than one individual night.
My lips are a discolored red from every poison stained mouth in which they've met.
My neck is a canvas of rough hands, ropes not tied tight enough and purple stains of affection from those who have lied about loving me,
and my eyes have turned grey from staring for too long into the forests and oceans they've met at three in the morning in the caves of unfamiliar faces.
So if you happen to walk into my room, don't be alarmed by the smell of apathy. Don't concern yourself about the bottles buried and broken under mounds of clothes that reek of Marlboros. Don't turn the light on, and don't open the curtains.
I have lived long enough, my body will tell you the story.
But before you read it, please trust me when I say "there is more to me than this."
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 9:48 PM UTC
On Tuesdays I dream of moon-soaked swims among bay-big moons
Silver saucered jellyfish that ripple through our hands
Wednesday nights are underground-
Straight whiskey at the Cantab beneath a canopy of Marlboros and Parliaments
(I’m imagining the cigarettes-
I’ve always romanticized death)
I only think of Sunfish on Thursdays,
Just a single sheet and us and the water
And the thought that we are propelled by more
Than the wind and less than physics.
Fridays are midnight walks through Central Square-
That tree on JFK by the metal gate,
The cab I chased after. Your jacket.
I awake early on Saturdays to your blue wall
And freshly made yerba, lectures on nonlinear differentials.
On Sundays we sleep late,
Wrapped in sub-letted sheets
Waiting for your lease to end before Sunday does.
The ground is gone on Mondays, the sidewalk on Sydney street has crumbled
I feel first-trimester-morning-sick
And the sky is dinosaur-ending dark, thick with resentment.
On Tuesdays I dream of moon-soaked swims among bay-big moons
Silver saucered jellyfish that ripple through our hands
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC
I know,
ten dollar bottles of whiskey
and cartons of Marlboros,
are certainly a way to accelerate my untimely demise.
But women,
now that'll be the death of me.
Underneath the drunken stupor
behind the walls of smoke;
I'm fragile as any fabric.
I can only be cut and sewn so many times...
Alas,
as with all my vices;
the whiskey,
the drugs,
the cigarettes,
I'll dive head first into the next one.
Give it my all.
Take it or leave it,
you'll have the best and worst of me.
And when you leave it,
I'll sew myself back together,
just one more time...
And it'll be on to the next one,
until I die.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 10:36 PM UTC
The movement of her body was entirely too loud
She is desert throat gasps
When the water is so good
She doesn’t stop for air
Can hear her comin’
Her rusty train wreck tremble
On loose tracks
Her collapse is a cinderblock rain
The crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her hands shake as she swipes her EBT card for the fifteenth time
She puts back the bacon this time
Throws down 5.50 for the Marlboros
She talks to herself
Angrily
Slams ever door she enters
Every door she exits
Her children think she is crazy
She is crazy
She is a body built
On passive aggression
And the threat of a shaky foundation
When the earthquake hits
Any day could be my last day you know
Her son turns up the tv
Her daughter plugs her headphones into her cd player
Do you all think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
And if you don’t stop sleep talking
*Telling me you’re going to **** me*
I am sending you to the hospital
The boy mutes the tv
Dries his eyes before they’re wet
He shakes his head
Begs her not to do that
Says he doesn’t know he’s doing it
Says he doesn’t want to **** her
She walks away
And he is left wondering
I remind him later
That we were not raised on truth
So it’s hard sometimes
To trust people
I put a lock on his door
Tell him to shut himself in at night
As for the mother
We don’t talk anymore
Like I said
She’s crazy
And I’ve got too much of that myself already
Somewhere a door is slamming
Somewhere cinderblocks are crumbling quiet
There is a sizzle like slowly cracking glass
I feel it crawl my spine
It crawls his
The girl misses it
Head buried in pop culture
Going deaf in trying to drown out
Her mother’s noise
Do you think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
As a poet I ask myself the same thing
Ask how far the apple can fall from the tree
If any one of us are lucky
It will be just far enough
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 1:20 PM UTC
Your love is hard
like rocks
in my belly
in the morning;
like starting the countdown
to a three-day drunk
a week later,
at every turning point,
every shadow
of an angle,
I am taking roads
I have never
crossed,
I am watching
water run
in crystalline rivers
toward alleys
I've never known.
When they ask me
for money
or Marlboros,
I say yes,
please,
I would like those too.
I would like to eat
bagels
in the sun
with crinkly paper in my teeth
and sour cream cheese
sweetening in the liquor.
My landscaper's shoulders
and granite deltoids
are now green with lime
and lichens.
Girls like to run
their
hands over them;
but they are hungry
for your hands
and the lavishing footsteps
of your fingernails.
When I wake up
I put enough water in the
coffee-maker
for about
twenty cups,
and enough
***** in those
twenty cups
for a three-day drunk.
Your love is hard like ice-cold *****
and boiling coffee
that
mutilates tastebuds
and
makes my belly feel real good.
But not talking to you for awhile;
it's easier to warm up in the morning
so I can cool down at night,
and by the pink dawn
of darkness
I could get back to working my belly
with ***** rocks, and
Marlboros.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 12:01 PM UTC
Everybody loves *****
they tell you it's wrong
to call it that:
*****
My mother
slapped me in the face
when she realized
I was thinking about it.
I was five.
She caught me
sticking my hands
down my pants
handling the soft
warm muscle of myself,
as Jeri Ryan
spoke cold and hard
to me
from the cargo hold
of the U.S.S. Voyager.
Jeri's ****
were so hard and stoic
in that grey spandex,
and a slight camel toe
took hold of my hand
and my body cooled
and warmed at the same time.
When I was fifteen,
I first felt one,
a *****
It made itself known
through a hole
full of wetness
and stink
in Mary's bebe jeans.
Mary,
was a puerto-rican girl
who smelled like marlboros
and perfume.
She talked about bubble baths.
I took my finger
and ran it through the
rough fabric
until i felt her.
I felt her pelvic bone,
and a soft, giving
rubber of human flesh
on the tip of my finger.
In the movie theatre I searched
until I felt an infinity of giving
an indention in the soft flesh
of breathing warmth and maximum.
With a whole world
in tow,
the lander of my finger
slowly entered a wet,
sticky atmosphere
poking, prodding,
returning
and re-entering
this wet,
fishy-syrupy smelling
world.
"I can feel your ***** I whispered.
"Don't call it that." she hummed back.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 12:13 AM UTC
I find no luster in anything
And I thought bringing you back
Would bring meaning to my life again.
I would love you to the moon and back
If you would only let me.
But instead,
You left me hanging among the stars.
Clothes shed like old skins
Our feelings are left on the floor somewhere in between.
We will not stop, cannot stop
The smell of you makes my eyes sting
And your touch makes me melt.
Our lust burns like a cigarette
And love is the smoke that chokes us
Until we both black out.
In fact,
You bought me a pack of Marlboros that day
On your way to my house.
We sat on the deck intertwined
As I smoked my life away.
And now
I don't know what to feel
But it is better than feeling nothing at all.
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 9:21 PM UTC
**** it,
imma go to the store
and get a few more
beers and some marlboros
im stumbling
all over the place
making circles in the hardwood
with my feet
and swing doors in the air closed
with spaghetti in my veins,
but imma make it,
imma shut that *******
dog up
too,
keeps barking,
shut the **** UP.
"That's Rob's dog,"
Elcie says,
spit ripples at the corners
of her mouth,
and some baked ziti
is rumored to be
in the toilet.
That ******* thing
is getting six 60 milogram
perky sets in his morning kibble,
right after I puke
some more baked ziti
and wodka.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 12:49 PM UTC
Every day I rise from the ashes
of my own pack of Marlboros
and climb, fingernails cracked and bleeding
clawing for the next hold,
higher higher higher.
I look down and see my feet
inches above the ground
and collapse in cold flame
backward on the bed.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 5:32 PM UTC
I once shared a room for a week with Jesus
He smoked Marlboros and enjoyed beef jerky
People called him Zach
But he was Jesus to me
He heard voices and paced the rug all day
He was hard on the rug
He was hard on me
When we smoked he would pace
back and forth in the snow making a path,
telling me that he was jesus
and that I had an evil laugh
He once told a girl to stop farting in his pacing space
I thought that was the funniest thing I ever heard
There were times that Jesus made me nervous
He would get an evil look on his face
and then he would smile
and tell me the world was going to end
He talked alot about the world ending
and what needed to be saved
I was on top of that list
I told him I didn't need to be saved
and that I didn't believe in God
It hurt him to know I didn't believe in his father
He was an interesting character
He had a drug problem and was schizophrenic
I have a drug and alcohol problem and I'm crazy
Together, we could save the world
He was a conservative and I, a liberal
Our politics clashed
but we didn't clash
Jesus and i got along just fine
I would tell him he was a fool
for blaming the worlds ills on liberals
He would smile and tell me I was the devil
Together we would laugh
We disagreed on most everything
We disagreed with smiles
One day I left in an ambulance
Jesus paced in his usual spot in the day room
I could see him smiling
As if to say "I told you so"
As if to say "Everything will be okay"
After a few days I was released from the hospital
I often spent time wandering the streets
One day I met a man out for a stroll with a cigarette
It was Jesus
He looked so glad to see me
He said hello and called me Mike
I said Hi and called him Zach
We must have been using code names
His secret was not yet known
As I passed him we both turned around and smiled
We both knew things had changed
We knew we had to go our separate ways
We did, but halfway down the block I turned
to catch one more look at the son of God
I still think of Jesus on a regular basis
I should have had more time for him
But I have a feeling he's doing just fine
And I smile when I think about Jesus,
somewhere out there saving the world
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 10:52 AM UTC
i probably fell in love with you
the moment you asked if you could have
one of my menthol Marlboros
it's too bad
the closest i'll ever get to you was
the moment you lit your cigarette
off of mine, inches away
from my face
it's too bad
i wouldn't let you get closer
even if you tried
it's too bad
she gets to call you hers
it's too bad
i'll probably never see you again anyway.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
A girl flicked a lighter next to me,
she flicked it on
as the whole room pulsed
and I felt strange
because her skin was on mine,
and Stephen rolled
on stage.
The cloud in the room
was thick and it was
a fog of Marlboros, Virginia Slims,
Menthols, Menthol Lights, Kools,
and all other sorts of ghosts.
Stephen made fire with his hands,
flailed like a marionette
and let the spirits loose.
He blew a baritone:
"I feel like we can really get close to each other,
in this tiny room."
Demons
can rise
and make fire;
can rise and make your belly feel
like hell
and molasses:
black and sweet.
Demons
can rise together
and make love
in a tiny room
that crackles.
Feb 8, 2012
Feb 8, 2012 at 12:55 AM UTC