Sometimes
… lately…
this heavy, hazy feeling
crowding my chest
this lazy, lumbering
never at rest
wheezing when I laugh
shuddering to shout
I have an unwell ache
skin shivers as I call out
rumbles when I am still
inhaling the silence
translating the gentle air
into an invasion of violence
marching inwards mundanely
with no respite to save it
and this recalls the ghosts of a life in smoke;
In the memory, how I crave it
… lately…
Sometimes
I said farewell,
To eruption of flame, eddies of smoke,
And the same small hope
Of a moment that’s mine
Taken at everyone’s expense,
And only for me, but safe inside
The cloud of death, safe to hide
Where none will follow.
Resolving to put them away
Is choosing to live, to invest,
And everyone is impressed
Anyone would make that decision.
Today I’m a smoker
With no smoke to inhale,
Engaging in today pales
To quitting.
I’ve been smoking again,
Those cold inhales
Stir something ancient,
Something forgotten, but relevant
To who I have become
And they swirl in my chest
Poised like potential energy
Waiting for kinetic exhales
To reclaim the visible space
To claim what’s been renamed
As previously owned property
And I hold in the whorls
Proof of the world
I exhaled into ether
The invisible space that
Once held my face
Against my will.
I inhale the memory,
And exhale the ghost.
I smoke again.
Burning months like matchsticks,
Because time is so predictable
As it erupts, and blazes,
And diminishes, and ends
In smoke and ash.
And all my love remains
Never smothered by the smoke
Of burnt seconds sacrificed
While my beloved breathe clean air
In distant spaces
And I light another day
Like she lights cigarettes,
Because time burns
A million different ways
But smolders the same
And I miss the dives,
The homogenous buzz
Of beer, and regret,
As hives of desperation
Produce anonymity
And what nectar could be sweeter,
Or safer,
Or a longer burn?
viewingcamelot 