FREED VERSE

It started with cigarettes and coffee,
some Odis Redding to get us through the night.
Sipping decaf instant on my back porch,
our embers our only light.

We linked pinkies in my bedroom
while I coaxed you into an L-U-V.
I hope you meant it then and mean it now
when you said it would always be me.

Then it was American Spirits, light blue:
some organic tobacco to stain your sheets.
We burned a smoke so steady, so true,
we couldn't feel our lungs growing weak.

Weak with my curbside Marlboro Reds,
the ones you hated that I smoked.
The same ones I tucked in my waistband
just in case you made it to that backyard show.

Sure enough, there you were!
I smiled and laughed my melting heart to shreds,
smile wide enough that you wouldn't think twice
about me taking one straight to the head.

I picked up some camel blues last week.
A brand we never tried.
Ash it to forget you
but still remember your ever-blue eyes.

They match the pack we never got to.

Still feel your touch when the nicotine hits.
Your fingertips rush through my veins.
Now I blow smoke into an azurine sky,
but daylight was never supposed to see me this way.