"menthols" poems
Chainsmoking menthols,
creating clouds on parade.
Living in the dark;
frenching hurt that I've made.
There's a sadness in my comfort
and a comfort in my sadness.
*** fame, ******* down
commercialized madness.
I don't dream of pornstars
as much as I dream of clothes.
Videogames to escape it all,
carbon monoxide through my nose.
Too good for this and that;
entitlement at an all-time high.
Doing television to help me live,
or maybe to help me die.
Spotify for the masses
beating in my brain.
Youtube and pornhub
to make me feel the same
as the lost I compare to myself
and the celebs I want to be.
I want to be on edge, rich, validated;
I want to live in a fractured harmony.
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 1:51 AM UTC
I stood over the sink
Scrubbing our negroni glasses
Wishing the ginger-scented soap
Would wash away the cancer
Because the chemo didn’t work
I was wearing eyeliner
When I first met you
We’d laugh about that later
Over a bottle of wine
And patatas bravas
We always had our weekends
Movie dates and inside jokes
We would guffaw at the
Fuckery of it all
My god your laugh
How it filled a room
I remember when you said
“I love you, Christopher…
because you just GET ME”
You expressed appreciation
For how I carved out time
For our friendship
I reminded you,
“I don’t carve out time for you,
I shove everything away while
screaming ‘I NEED MY HEIDI TIME!’”
*********
I need my Heidi time
For years you were
The most consistent thing in my life
Always there for one another
We were each other’s touchstones
I realize this now more than ever
During my weekends spent alone
Wine tastes different now
Something’s missing
Going to the movies feels strange
It’s like the hero has
Left the frame
Remember when I smoked cigarettes?
You’d *** a drag as we crept
Through early evening traffic
On our way to get gelato
Or if we were feeling sassy
Maybe an affogato
I switched to vaping
When you went into hospice
Then back to menthols
When your spirit left this world
I’m addicted to our memories
More than the nicotine
They bang around my head
Like a song or a scent
Nostalgic
And
Lingering
You tattooed
“CEDENDO VINCES”
On your wrists
“By yielding, you will win”
My finger traced those words
While I held your hand
Last breaths
But what are deaths?
Transitions
Energy
Shifting
A spark
Returning
/ / /
Those letters live
On my wrists now
A reminder of her
The sister I never had
And sometimes
I still hear her laugh
Sep 25, 2022
Sep 25, 2022 at 3:47 PM UTC
Some Autumn evening..
I grabbed a cigarette.
Lit it without thinking.
A few years after..
Another Autumn day..
I met you.
I love you daily.
Without thinking
Because who knows?
One day, you may replace...
My pack of Marlboro Menthols.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 1:44 AM UTC
Mary, plain name. Mary, mother of God
Mary, Queen of the Strip Mall
Mary, daughter of a King and a *****
Divinity in her blood, conqueror of lands,
Monarch of her body, kingdom of junkies.
Nails inlaid with pearls, mink lashes and onyx eyes
Indigo polyester wraps her 36, 30, 41,
saltwater taffy legs, **** and ***
Mary wasn’t a tall boy, Mary is a funnel cloud queen
Obsidian brazilian in velcro, soda can curls.
Mary has no titles, Mary is a ******* Mary is an exile.
Queen of cream stucco and neon and parking lots.
Mary has disciples, all named Judas.
She has Roy Cohn, the judge’s son, and Louis XIV on their knees in prayer.
She has **** Cheney, Little Richard, and Freud their knees in the bathroom behind the Tesco.
Mary doesn’t confess, doesn’t beg, doesn’t buy.
Mary the conqueror, Alexander reincarnate, she survives.
Body bathed in ultraviolet, cocoa butter, vaseline, and newport menthols.
Mary talks to God in the mirrors at the salvation army.
Mary is scared of dying, she knows she is no ones martyr.
Mary never kneels, left the Bible in the motel nightstand.
A graceful end, a unceremonious departure.
Trade rose petals for needles and styrofoam slurpee cups.
Mary’s mistresses, lovers, and wives, gave her a few lead rounds,
Left her in the strip mall mausoleum.
Mary, queen of the carnal, saint of suburban perversions.
Mary never asked God for forgiveness or a fix.
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019 at 3:47 PM UTC
I wish you'd develop and addiction to me
in the same way you're addicted
to your menthols.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 1:49 PM UTC
Marlboro Menthols, Lights, or Milds
Cowboy-killers, cancer-sticks
Guilty pleasure, a necessary fix
Holding hands with coffee
You get that jolt
Or shall I say relief
Days become more bearable
Courtesy of these,
Alcohol as a 3rd dimension
Aiding in more than just sleep
Take a pull and fill the need
Clear your head for a quick second
Alcohol, caffeine, nicotine;
They’re all I need
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 3:45 AM UTC
replacing white lines with gray ash and sleeping in beds for sleeping in bathrooms and you wonder if you had any self respect in the first place because this afternoon you tried to think of your happiest memories in the past year and it wasn't when you were in someone's arms or thinking of your successes in the mirror while you flexed your kickass young *** it was when you were smoking bummed menthols and your friend commandeered a miniature tractor in the tenderloin and conducted two drug deals in less than 30 minutes and you watched her disdainfully with her girlfriend and wondered where on ******* earth you could get a three dollar old fashioned and let a forty year old flirt with you for coke and you wouldn't even have to do anything for it wouldn't life be nice like that
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 5:32 PM UTC
Old men fascinated by teen *****
and the hues harnessed by high school hips,
I ask you to look at something corrupted:
yourself, this town, this world.
The town's lumber supplier has died
and daughters fight over dollars.
Greasy haired women, wearing denim,
smoking menthols and bruised with cheap make-up,
stand on fractured sidewalks.
I walk, wearing a Native American-ized fleece,
the Chippewa crush their cigarettes
and blink like lizards at me
because I wear bastardization,
but wash it.
Half the town smokes,
and if you ask the pastor,
the whole town smokes
because everyone's going to hell.
All the girls read John Green
and flip the pages because it's a cheaper escape than a bus ticket.
Plato said that everything changes
and nothing stands still;
these people will suffer,
their bodies will break down,
and they will die --
but what never changes is their hope
in eventual death.
What cannot change is my hope
in something more.
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 2:47 PM UTC
Her breath tasted like an odd combination of
****
*****
orange juice
and menthols
Her stubble scratched at my chin
Her hands gripped my waist
(almost as hard as mine gripped hers)
She laughed at I got drunker
My back was bruised from the fence at the edge of the stage
where she pressed into me
where the mass of dancing bodies pressed into her from behind
I loved those bruises when morning came
And maybe there's something wrong with me
but the fact that she had two hickeys on her neck
both the size of my palm
both still purple
Only made me want to kiss her more
And maybe there's something wrong with me
but I knew how to move my body
How to rub our hips together
My body was an expert already
but my lips were so inexperienced
I drove home that night and I didn't think about you
How you'd turn your cheek when we tried to kiss
But you'd stick your hand down my pants with excitement
How I was always your ***** little secret,
But she held my hand in public
I didn't think about your combination of
Apple Cinnamon Lotion
Tea Tree Oil Shampoo
and Mango Burt's Bees Chapstick
I thought instead of how her cherry red lipstick
stained the end of my cigarette
And reminded me that I
Don't love you
Anymore.
Apr 24, 2017
Apr 24, 2017 at 10:10 PM UTC
They say,
old habits die hard.
Don't I know it.
I put down the bottle for a while,
picked it back up.
Older now, more refined.
Bourbon,
instead of the cheap rot gut,
of my youth.
It all kills you in the end.
Still can't go out in public.
Teeth grinding,
Who's the enemy?
Who's the snake in this crowd?
Do I have my weapon?
Constantly clutching leather bound steel,
haven't needed the blade,
in a long time,
but must always be ready.
Marlb menthols,
pack a day, at least.
Smoke one to take the edge off,
there's always an edge.
Serial monogamist,
constantly striving for love,
hopeless romantic.
Hopelessly falling for women so venomous,
they could teach vipers,
a thing or two.
Picked up
a couple new ones but,
the old habits die hard
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 12:29 AM UTC
he read Brautigan
and thus would say all this is juvenile
and not real
he was real in a ***** brown sweater he wore
every day I knew him that smelled like menthols
and sweat and dope (he called it dope
sometimes because Bukowski did and he
read Bukowski too)
of course
he was real in his Catholic school
sports coat and fresh face once
without the 5-day beard he took to
wearing as a **** you to the system and other
real things like that which he sang
about on his guitar with a hole
in the bottom
the one he found in a
second hand store just like he always dreamed
he would and they would make sweet sad
music (that high and lonesome sound)
together forever he wrote his
poems to the tune of its steel strings
when he would sit at home at night and get
high and lonesome too
and so would I
because he thought I was ugly but didn't know
how to say it so he let me tag along for a few years
and let me sing in my off key death rattle
and lent me Brautigan and Bukowski
so I could know what was real and not real
but I didn’t learn my lesson so well
now did I?
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 1:06 PM UTC
darling,
you are the story
i will never tell
to my future kids
you are the words that
will bleed like rain on
diary pages
you are the empty
cups of coffee I’ll
fill my cluttered desk
you are the ashes
of yet another
wretched pack of menthols
you are forever
and will always be
my empty, painful
secret; love me, please?
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
On my bookshelf sits a cup of cigarettes,
Menthols-
But I’m not a smoker.
Every now and then I pull out my lighter
Take a few drags
And curse at myself for letting go once again-
But I’m not a smoker.
And it’s not an addiction.
It’s simply lost willpower
Letting myself drop the promises I make to myself
To sit and smoke a few
Taste the burnt mint roll across my tongue-
But I’m not a smoker.
I always buy a new pack
When I notice the cup running low,
Never let it empty completely
That would mean I smoke-
But I'm not a smoker.
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 11:01 PM UTC
I grew up in a village
Americans always seem to laugh
at the very idea of a village
how quaint?
but I did
it was five or ten years behind the times
and in the pub,
the huntsman,
the local
there is an old Marlboro
cigarette vending machine
with lights and menthols
and 27's and reds
and milds and ultra milds
and all the others
I'm too drunk to remember
I miss those machines
bells rung of a simpler time
I miss those machines
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 12:03 AM UTC
i still remember her braless
in the summer sun of Vilano beach
she's just wrapped in my undershirt
and glowing in the Spanish wind
she still lives in the tunnels
way down below my heart
we couldn't find wifi
in her apartment so i knelt
at her alter in the whirling dark
but she kept me
at arm's length and touched me
only with her fingertips as if
i was particles in a braille warning
her fingerprints smelled like menthols
i can still taste her skin on my teeth
i slipped just as she caught her footing
she stood silent and true on the raised edge
she said she was looking for something to
hold onto, "well, what about me," i asked
but her fingers just formed rings around my eyes
to dam the water there she cut the string
that was always between us
she laughed as i was on my way down
through the vines i saw her rising
toward the ceiling
and now any time i make love to someone else
she comes to me projected on any bedroom or
back alley wall she opens my chest
so the Spanish wind can escape
and shows me the places
she inserted the blade
Feb 10, 2022
Feb 10, 2022 at 8:18 PM UTC
Reading a friend's poetry
and learning about myself--
learning new articulations.
Switching to menthols
for as long as this cold lasts.
Realizing my body wants nicotine
but my mouth wants smoke,
that very often one, not the other,
will be satisfied--that is what's in conflict.
I am trying to be a child,
and I could go philosophically about that
or regressively--
Sort of, it is not the bottle itself I sip
which makes me the rosy ribald randy carouser
but what I put back into the bottle then the trashbin
which displaces the liquid up to my lips.
But regardless of my intents and drinking habits,
I'll still be splashing in the water,
running along the edge of the pool
building a current, a whirlpool
compelling my friends into water,
tackling and dunking and pull them underneath,
and gasping together for breath,
swept along and swelling
hoping to summon a Maelstrom
to engulf me and all.
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 3:14 PM UTC
you said 'don't lie to me
i can see your eyes'
so we sat on the jeep stop and
talked about feelings i'm
not sure i had.
you wanted i cry on your shoulder
cause you knew my loss
i was unfeeling
'can't do that on demand'
but suddenly it was 9PM and i was an ugly mess
sitting on the ground smoking menthols
wondering what the **** just happened
i was always the shoulder to cry on
so yours was a foreign place
but thank you for taking me places
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 7:49 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
The grave of my teenage daughter
is a restaurant she was born at 16.
I was told she began smoking long reds for long breaks – they lasted 15 minutes at most – and she had her first sip of alcohol there. Coffee liqueur from a straw in booth 14 from a customer who later became her lover.
The next lover was the second to slap her, and following that was the first kiss she ever received from someone she admired – even though he didn’t admire her back.
It was near the gumball machine, right between the hanging claw and the golfing game. Neither had worked in years. But the lights still flickered, and she always used to talk about how the neon chants radiated across his grimace when he asked her for a kiss.
Even he knew it was only for her.
Even she knew it was never for him.
But she agreed anyway.
The waiter told me that she smoked an entire pack of Menthols after, as if to brush her teeth, but it didn’t cleanse a mint memory. It only burned it away, etched it into the cement curb where we last saw her – drinking one last time as the yellowing sky stretched over the horizon and left her smoke as ash against the morning mist.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 2:21 AM UTC
There was a time when I glimpsed the future
The possibilities it held sparked something in me
I was no longer consumed by the tedium that had been relentless in recent days
I could taste new beginnings
I became blind to the gray scale world I'd been living in
Ah that lovely haze
Those were the times when I climbed on rooftops
When I'd walk on the train tracks over the river smoking menthols, drunk on life and ***** sprites
Since then the fog has lifted and the world has returned to its dull state
I don't have any desire to climb on rooftops
I don't see what the point would be
And those train tracks that stretch over the river
Can't even reignite that something in me
And it seems I'm stuck on the 27s again
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 12:26 AM UTC
Those Ray Bans I begged you to get for me last summer. The ones that were always lopsided because I sat on them every time I threw myself into your passenger seat.
The nozzle we used to ***** onto the hose to fill up water balloons before we rode around in your car and hucked them at all those ******* bikers.
That glass pipe we bought at Amazing Adult Express. The one that changed colors every time we got high together.
...Not to mention the plastic pink **** you found in a bathroom at college and told me I could have.
My eyeliner pencil that never came off my face even with make up remover because I charred it with my lighter too many times.
The squished pack of Marb Menthols you plucked from my back pocket and wouldn't give back because *Smoking is for ***** girls.*
My virginity.
And the ironic 'Thank You For Not Smoking" sign you stole for me from the Comfort Inn the night after prom.
That last glass of wine at your family dinner you drank for me because It would have been too much.
The purple lace bra and ******* I cooked you dinner in last Valentines day. The night I let you do me on the kitchen counter.
And that Needham Football shirt I love to sleep in. It used to be yours but I think we would both agree, it should be mine now
Jul 1, 2011
Jul 1, 2011 at 8:09 AM UTC
As rough and as difficult
life may well be
it's still so deeply beautiful
down in the
philippines
The beauty of the village
might not be apparent
at first glance.
What deters at first
might be the killing
and the nature of a life
dictated by chance.
But once you start accepting,
adapting and reflecting,
you'll notice that it's just
the island way of living.
Nurture nature's native nest,
share what yield the fields have held,
food to feed for feeling folk,
care about your neighbors health.
Live in tune with natures wrath
but don't exceed her measure
stick to filipino paths,
thus warmth and generosity
will provide you with pleasure.
Red Horse Strong for everyone,
Tuba, Tanduay and San Miguel.
Menthols, **** and beetlenut,
you just have to treat us well.
Sabong's not for the soft,
it's difficult to watch.
Roosters duel over
who avoids the cooking ***
blades fly through the air
and blood adorns
the sand with spots.
The winner stays a champion,
the loser's in a plastic bag, granting us that evenings dinner
and we've just made our money back.
Wet markets aplenty,
with fish you've never seen before.
Smells of seasalt, blood and gore,
mix to form a memory,
akin to sobering melody.
Watch out for the Aswang
and do not break a mirror.
Keep the deadbolt shut at night,
to avoid unpleasant surprises.
The ocean's at your doorstep
and so are the bananas
and the coconuts.
Skinny teens disguised with bandanas,
strapped, riding through the village.
Don't worry they're just cousins,
standing vigil, chasing cops.
Fistfight near the fish ponds,
neither one backs down.
Tilapia watch eagerly
for who'll sink to the ground.
Their brother came by earlier
selling pastries with his friend.
Buy three each for everyone,
your total's fifty cents.
Everywhere there's laughter,
music, sun and food.
Really nothing better
than the filipino mood.
Jul 29, 2025
Jul 29, 2025 at 10:00 AM UTC
rite aid was out of maverick red 100s;
they only had shorts.
i had to buy a pack of newports
and the thought of shedding you
made me tremble as i slid my card.
yes, i switched from your menthols
back to my reds and yes, i kept your brand.
the other day i walked into my room
and the scent of cigarettes took me back,
back to the times of us sharing cigarette
after cigarette and i began to cry.
i called my therapist but she didn’t pick up.
the thought of quitting smoking crosses my mind
on at least a weekly basis, but i refuse to let you
ruin an agent of death i held in my hand
even before you came along.
i will not stop and i will continue to shed
the strongest tears for you.
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 5:25 PM UTC
By Arcassin Burnham
I fell in love with your ignorance,
It didn't show cause you were heaven sent,
I started aiming for the craziness,
Then took a trip back to my consciousness,
I fell in love with a your innocence,
Theres nothing crazy about deliverance,
I push your buttons cause I care with bliss,
I was use to whatever heaven sent,
Staring at the cold ground with sore eyes and leaky
Sockets,
Laying at corners of my head that's dripping from
My pockets,
I don't have a lot of money to buy some fancy
Concoction,
But to impress you just to caress you is not an option,
So I walk through these blue lights,
The subject I can no longer bite,
Hanging out on the cold winter night with a box
Of menthols and the devil cries,
the evening is certainly quite,
A sight to see up in the night sky,
But tonight this love can not die,
And this is the reason why I said...
I fell in love with your ignorance,
It didn't show cause you we're heaven sent,
I started aiming for the craziness,
Then took a trip back to my consciousness,
I fell in love with a your innocence,
Theres nothing crazy about deliverance,
I push your buttons cause I care with bliss,
I was use to whatever heaven sent,
Whatever heaven sent.
Feb 5, 2017
Feb 5, 2017 at 11:17 AM UTC
I inhale the faint smell of menthols and cheap cologne
I want to trace every ridge
Curve
And bump
Of your body
With my lips
Scratches chalk outline your back
Leaving red lines that mark my trust
When tears of passion
Fall from my pores
Just know
When you're in me
You're inside my head too
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 12:53 AM UTC