23/30

quasi-cheating. I wrote this in the last few days, don't know exactly when. I am road tripping, and am going to use it as my 23. I'll write 24 sometime and if my internet works later, I will post that one too!

23/30
smoked what will be my first
and last cigarette tonight tried to
figure out what you liked about
the burn and the heat. Now, it is
five in the morning and I can’t find
sleep but every time I cough I
taste just like you. I taste just like
kissing you. I taste just like early
Saturday mornings, like bedroom
forts and beach castles. I am
the front steps in the rain
when we both knew it was over and
you stood behind me and smoked
another cigarette and I sat stuck on porch steps
and peeling paint, because I couldn’t find my
legs. remembering all the
nights we went bowling in parking lots or sat
on rooftops looking for constellations
in city lights. Like when I showed up at
four in the morning outside your sliding
glass doors. I taste just like standing
out there with my
heart in my mouth and two years--two years
in my hair, in my eyes, in my bones. It is
five in the morning and I coughed you out
into my bed. This smoke cloud is keeping
me awake and my friend suggested ice-cream
but I don’t eat through my lungs and
only 70% of each carcinogenic inhale did I exhale
so now you will be lining the trees in my
chest for days. you will come back to
me every time I clear my throat and I know
I am just being emotional but
shit. I can feel the knot in my stomach starting
to form again, like I am back on
the porch in the rain, and you stand over
me, take drags off your
cigarette, refuse to kiss me goodbye.