Forget; An Optimal Solution When One Possesses A Lighter With Which To Start The Process. Poem by Candice Renae Williams

Cigarettes...
The burn in my throat is so familiar.
Cough, sleep, cough, and wake.
Burn’t muck dripping down the drain.
Never-ending this need for them fuels me-my day and allows peace at night-
Why do I persist cigarette after cigarette?
Is the retching- bits of brown- really worth this much! ?
Like human folly, my strength weans on the balance of loves trolley,
Foul tart! Tightening my belly- I light up to this reflecting thought-
Clenching my gum- the thin tube of paper-it will not move an inch,
In the heat flows, down my throat, till
The heartbeat settles down to a relaxing rhythm.
One moment in time-
-Never has it begun-
Memories of love...
They march to this passing recollection, a still-image framed in thought—
And airy like the flutter of a bee,
Nephrina’s fluttering escapes past my lungs,
Fogging the mirror of sweet idyllic time—
In my haste to have that next breath this barely registers among my senses—
Still,
It dulls this eternal intoxication by flow of tar…
Deeply coated in hazy relief, I share my mind with passivity—thinking-
I laughed today.
And in this instant the mirror is released,
No more cloud of waste to cover it up—a glint
And words are seen, reminding me of my longing,
Scrambling off so that I can no longer see, and thus like a coward I close my eye-
Cough, wake, cough, sleep
Shame on me for this weakness.
Shame on you for judging me.
What more passing is in thus said promise to him!
If he has not been around to see me quit.
Why should I quit?
To remember? !
-let him rot! —Emmanuel, I’ll see your eyes no more!
Golly gee, that would be swell.
Or am I accursed to continue like this until every brain cell
has burned away.
And thus dying from a cigarette
—as I am way over partial—
Induced death…
At least I’ll have that last breath,
Cloy! Ole, nicotine clogging this rest.



2-15-05