Cigarette Friend; Beginning from the End

Split a cigarette with me,

I dare you.

Pause time with me,

over the changing of leaves.

As days drift by, lighting up my window.

You watch.

You watch me

watch.

I couldn’t bear living in a place without large, overbearing windows,

I tell you.

 

Windows are a promise.

You trust the trees to dance above your head, as your sleep;

the last thing your mind will think.

 

I don’t know lots of things.

When I try to my head fills up fast, spilling all over my feet.

So I try to dive into one dream,                                                                                                        one thought                                                                                                                                           at a time.

But something I am sure of is one day,                                                                                             when I have worked hard for something,                                                                                         I will own a pair of big bay widows.

 

I smile-

I make sense.

 

Perhaps I have become too accustom                                                                                                to the goldfish-bowl, windows inhibit                                                                                                                               when you spend too much time in a store.

 

Windows are filled with the outside.

 

If you wake up and go to bed early enough,                                                                                     you will be rewarded with temperamental light                                                                                   so bright                                                                                                                                                    it can fill up every hole of yourself.                                                                                                         Almost making them appear somewhat beautiful,                                                         purposeful                                                                                                                                                in their depth.

 

It’s not constant, yet always welcome.                                                                                        Better received than a morning cup of tea;                                                                                 the arrival of a fresh-faced day.

 

Yet, somehow, you can’t always notice change from your window.                                      But you can breath it in,

one

clove

at a time.

 

 

At the mention,

your hand wonders through my hair.

Sifting through coppers browns and caramels, your fingers

find the white tucked behind my ear.

 

I tell you,

that my first cigarette I tore up.

 

I remember dipping my nails into the sickly-sauce                                                                      and quickly scrubing them clean.

I was sixteen.

I felt it raw in my lungs,                                                                                                          quartering my days of light,                                                                                                                 like cheesecake.

I only tried it because I was bonding                                                                                              in a way I hadn’t before.

The smokers hive a place where                                                                                                  talking was no longer a competitive sport.

Socialising in groups was like writing pages of a report                                                     without paragraphs.                                                                                                                  Sentences with no fullstops,                                                                                                         speech marks too chewy to swallow.

 

Smoking was poetry.                                                                                                                                     The quiet infectious.

Careful words,  swam       in-between           one silence    to             another.

I liked to swim with them, imitating a blue whale.

 

Then inhale.

Watch the words contract,

spread over seconds,                                                                                                                 minutes.

Exhale.

At sixteen, Sunday’s consisted of smoking balanced with drinking.                                          The pieces were accompanied by a wayward sort-of friend,                                                  who’s face was camouflaged in too much anger at the world                                                                               and not enough piercings.

 

You watch,

the lit ash drip away from the smoke.

From my window, it almost looks relieved to be less

than what it was.

 

It’s almost funny to think something so ugly

can look like baby-fireflies,

finally free from their casing.

I expose this thought aloud.

 

You smirk,

appreciation

trumps your need to point out my randomness.

Perhaps your getting use to it.

Maybe,

even liking it.

 

 

I ask you if you remember a few weeks back,

when your cigarettes perched themselves

upon my window-sill.

 

You initialed my middle name with them,

forgetting to re-pock them

for later.

 

So I thought it was only polite to offer                                                                                           one a lazy quarter of my lungs.                                                                                                       Just one–

An entree to my new identity;                                                                                                       from beach-barbie to the proud owner of a dusted caramel ‘mop’                                       ( my dad called it); cigarettes and my new hair flew a french flag.

If I didn’t have a pastry in my hand,                                                                                                   a cigarette had to do.

My hips more than happy for the exchange.

I aimed for one a day;                                                                                                                company on the way home,                                                                                                             after a night spend with clumped bodies                                                                                 layered in liquor.                                                                                                                                    A soother for my insides,                                                                                                                 after a conflict that seemed to simmer                                                                                       rather then dissolve.

Something for the old me to stare at in awe.

After that one, four,                                                                                                                             twelve…

I started to smell it on the road.                                                                                                      Ash-tray males suddenly lit                                                                                                               my interest                                                                                                                                            like never before.

The craving stuck in the air,                                                                                                           stuck on my tongue.

My Barista, (an old Norwegian man)                                                                                                                      was more than supportive of my new lifestyle choices.

He said he lived to serve the 3 C’s –  coffee, cigarettes and customers.                                            Cunts being the silent sound of cheesecake,                                                                                         served without

dairy-free,

fat-free

ice-cream.

 

He argued it was a coin toss.                                                                                                            You never know which side                                                                                                               the day will gift you.

And my ex hated it,                                                                                                                         which fitted as I hated him.

Cigarettes igniting my bitterness,                                                                                                           burning                      away            the nostalgia.

 

You gently touch my lips to open.

But I don’t want to inhale this feeling.

I prefer to lay the past cold on the concrete.

 

You tell me,

that kind of cigarette comes free.

Like lung cancer,

it hums in the packet,

patient for your touch.

 

You tell me,

you use to find 3-4 past-infused cigarettes in a pack.

But if you taste them over and over again,

then they turn back into white

paper,

tar

and

cloves.

 

I open my mouth,

inhale.

You take it out of my mouth,

popping it back into yours.

The taste suddenly sweetened.

 

Your lips shape a rectangle,

framing your tar-flavoured

lolly-pop.

 

Once a regret.                                                                                                                                   Today a pause;                                                                                                                             meditation                                                                                                                                                 to stay in the now.

Atleast cigarettes have the courtesy of letting you know                                                          when you have used them too much.

Addictive, the more you take the less there is.                                                                                                 Smoke twirls on your tongue                                                                                                before being sucked away.

 

Your smoke sticks in my hair.

I wave it away.

It whispers to me,

may he stay?

 

The world tastes different after enough time.

But I like our view;

Windows, me

and

maybe,

possibly you.