heartbreak and cigarettes

Author: heartbreakandcigarettes

  • Relax.

    Relax.

    Relax.
    In just a few months
    (that will feel like
    a few lifetimes),
    You will forget
    that he ever consumed
    the vast majority
    of your thoughts
    and your heart.

    “Relax.” – sugar and sandalwood

  • The city skyline.

    The city skyline.

    The city skyline
    against the sparkling black
    backdrop of the night
    sky reminded me of you
    and the times we spent
    together; days I wish
    we could get back.

    “The city skyline” – sugar and sandalwood

  • Failure

    Failure

    Trying and failing
    is like missing your
    turn in a traffic
    circle: you always
    get another chance
    to ride the circle
    again, loop back around,
    and take the right exit.

    “Failure” – sugar and sandalwood

  • Missing you.

    Missing you.

    I miss you,
    as the sun
    misses the moon,
    as it turns
    from dusk to dawn
    and back again.

    “Missing you.” – sugar and sandalwood

  • Memories

    Memories

    Reels of film
    unravel
    in my mind.

    Moments lost,
    swept away
    by the hands of
    time.

  • Lost.

    Lost.

    Yesterday, I got lost.
    But,
    I didn’t realize it until I
    reached my destination. Somehow,
    I got to where I was going
    without a map —

    my phone died,
    I couldn’t recognize any strangers
    on the sidewalk with faces
    that looked like they knew
    where they were going either.

    But,
    I’m sure they arrived where they’d intended,
    just as I did, and
    I’m sure, like me,
    they’d had no idea
    they were even trying
    to get somewhere
    in the first place,
    or that they were even

    lost.

    “Lost.” – bem

  • Sight.

    Sight.

    At last night’s dinner party,
    we laughed around the unlit fireplace,
    and dizzy from after-dinner drinks,
    talked about the first time we saw
    something — opened our eyes.

    I never listened to the answers,
    but dazed, contented, and buzzing,
    from amber-colored brandy,
    looked out the window — then crash !
    “What was that?”
    A heavy, white globe rolled across the red carpet —

    The professor palmed it, laughing
    — savored the weight and smoothness of it, then
    pulled up the pane of the adjacent window,
    tossed the baseball back to the boys on the street.

    “Just like that,” he said.

    “Sight.” – bem

  • Bathing.

    Bathing.

    Last night, I bathed for the first time.
    It was a beautiful, porcelain bathtub with
    silver claw feet.
    Inside it, I reclined.

    I rubbed the soap across my skin
    with sponges and soaked in salt and
    exhaled,
    surrounded by vanilla candles, lit
    and the fresh, cool spring air wafted in through
    the window – I inhaled.

    Then I climbed out of the porcelain tub,
    dried myself off, sauntered
    over to the window,
    drew the curtains, and
    pulled open the window further and
    found the entire neighborhood was sparkling
    clean.

    “Bathing.” – bem

  • Ablaze.

    Ablaze.

    That night in the deep, dark
    woods, she woke up in her tent,
    aroused by the heat.

    She unzipped and stepped outside,
    finding herself surrounded –
    Ablaze – the trees were
    like a circle of hell
    from the soil to the sky,
    nowhere for her to find solace except
    looking upward to the deep
    navy sky.

    “Run.”
    Gulping the steaming hot air,
    she sprinted through the flames —
    with open arms and palms and face still to the sky —

    she burst out the other side:

    gold stardust surrounded by midnight,
    reformed and dancing with the fireflies.
    Casting new shapes and shadows against
    the cool, damp ground.

    Contained in the blaze,
    she’d rushed through the flames and
    emerged, glittering and brand new.
    Cleansed.
    Courage numbing her as she shed her
    old skin, which crumbled and dusted in ashes
    beneath her gilded
    footsteps.

    “Ablaze.” – bem

  • Hatchlings.

    Hatchlings.

    In the first grade,
    our little group walked
    double-file down the hall,
    around the corner,
    behind our teacher
    to the wing with “KINDERGARTEN”
    painted so high on the wall,
    it almost touched the ceiling.

    “To see a surprise,” they said.
    We went into the large classroom
    at the end of the hall to find
    little incubators filled with eggs,
    warming.
    “Baby chickens,” they said.

    We waited and waited
    and watched and
    came back and left
    in anticipation.

    Then finally, eventually, the
    little brown eggs started
    to crack and crack
    and little beaks poked through,
    jutted between jagged edges,
    fracturing the smooth, tawny shell
    surfaces they used to call home.

    We chattered amongst ourselves
    in excitement, watching intently and buzzing
    as we watched each little neon orange
    beak clickclickclick through.

    – First delicate and untouchable, now
    a minor inconvenience they needed
    to rid themselves of – too
    confining and dark, encapsulated
    from oxygen and sunlight.

    Finally, all the little chicks
    were out!
    “Wow,” our little 6-7 year old
    mouths gaped open
    in amazement and as they hatched,
    we cracked open
    our eyes, mouths, minds
    with a little more experience and
    ready for the next surprise.

    “Hatchlings.” – bem