Because I huddle on my lover’s porch blowing
plumes
and Chaos, contemplating what is tangible. Or
because
it is my house and no one here criticizes me. Or
because
I am twenty-five feet from any doorway, and
legally
that is where I may smoke, so back-off. I am determined
to take any meager sanctuary this world offers.
I smoke because some men are all hype and marriage
is a dead-end. Because twenty years ago, my
husband
bankrupted us and my religion bound me to his
creditors,
to his spending and lies and neglect. To my
child’s hunger,
the wretched sinking. Where was god then?
Consumed with anger I smoked god into a wisp.
I smoke because I write. I am unhinged by images
of utopias and an apocalypse, because in every
dream,
in the dewy spider webs draped near my door,
in the sticks and puddles, there are
beauty-filled poems
I am too inadequate and untalented to write. I
smoke for clarity
When I don’t smoke, I can’t write. Still, no one
reads my poetry.
I suspect it is not worth reading. I smoke in
desperation.
Who am I, if not a bad writer?
I smoke because my friends used to smoke. We French-inhaled
and blew rings, pontificating existential absurdities.
Cigarettes emphasize points. I smoke because,
like my friends,
I cannot imagine not being. I want to scoff death.
I smoke because of the anxiety of living. Because
loss
shreds me and I think I should have earned something,
have something
to show for it all. I smoke because
I am ambivalent, conflicted, afraid to say that I don’t know.
Now none of my friend’s smoke. I smoke to be
left alone,
unhampered by the cat-calls and needs of others.
No one likes a smoker. I smoke because I will not
admit
I need others. Because loneliness is a black
hole
and when I finally got myself alone and all to
myself,
I smoked for the courage to be vulnerable.
Humanity’s lot is to be lonely.
My daughter visits and I am reminded of her
father,
how leaving him meant I had abandoned her to eke
out
her own future, a future suddenly, bleakly
different
than the one she counted so. So, I smoke. I
smoke for her grief
and for mine. When she visits, we smoke away the
shame
of our separation.
I plop a pack on the kitchen counter. One sink full
of dishes
is book-ended with deep drags, the long un-smoked
ash
hangs in air like an accusation. At work, I keep
a pack on my desk.
Not ready to move on the next task, I smoke. My
supervisor calls,
I smoke. Before presentations, after interviews,
and meetings,
I smoke to steady my nerve. Cigarettes are there
for me.
I don’t think about what they ask for in return.
Secretly, I want to burn it all down. Burn down
the office
and all its demands. Burn down the system that
holds it.
I want to burn the artifacts of my life, the
books that prove
I am never too smart to smoke, the clothes,
shoes, and hats
piling like a pyre, the love letters that in the
end didn’t hold.
Somewhere I got lost. I will smoke until I find
my way.
My mother smoked when she was pregnant
with me
and I am susceptible to smoking.
Every night, my father
smoked cigars and drank beer. I
smoke because I drink wine.
I smoke because I drink coffee. I
smoke because I smoke.
Smoking is my birthright. It is my
meal of porridge.
It is my inheritance. It is the only thing my parents ever gave me.
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