by joy

Why I Started Smoking Again
Your nicotine breath mixed with whiskey
was exciting at first, but became a heavy shroud
of all the reasons we needed to end things
The smoke lingered, slid into my lungs when
I stood by the ashtrays trying to penetrate
circles gathered outside every bar
It crawled under doors you hid behind, thinking
I wouldn’t smell it if you cracked a window
In the end, everything
was a cracked window
behind a closed door
When you started disappearing for days at a time,
I laid on all the floors of the house we bought
when we thought we were adults

I found an unopened red pouch of American Spirits
under our bed, the one I had been sleeping in alone lately,
and put it in my underwear drawer
At night I paced the sidewalk in front of our front door,
rolling cigarettes to pass the agonizing amounts of time
I spent flogging myself from the inside for having any hope
that you would come home.
When the tobacco dried out with my patience,
I started buying packs – yellow was my signature color

When you saw me flicking red embers with my thumb,
you had the same look on your face I had when I found out
you’d been getting vegetarian sushi with her for lunch –
Why now? Why not with me?