Cigarette

if cigarettes didn’t make me stink for days, if I’d ever figured out how to tap the ash away from my trembling fingertips, I would sit on the porch taking a long drag instead of filling the empty space with music that makes my chest cave in. if cigarettes could soften the blow I’ve given myself, I would stick one between my teeth and grin, ravishing. fill the pit in my stomach with smoke and rakish winks. adjust my sweater with a spindly, “the nicotine stifles my hunger pains” hand with my glasses propped atop my hair. I’d scuff my new boots on the brick wall for the perfect lived-in taste and bum a light off a boy with two-day-unshaven scruff. he would smile as he plucked the cigarette from my dry, greedy mouth and we’d trade fluttering glances but never anything more. if cigarettes didn’t make me stink for days, if I’d ever learned how to smoke with two fingers while drumming the others on my thigh, I would sprawl across your lap and laugh, inappropriately bemused by your half-assed joke about communists. the tall boy with the scruff would scowl and you’d flick my nose with a stained finger as I suck in delicious hospital trips. we’d never work. you still pair your socks while mine tangle in the back of my drawer. you time your draws while I frown at the bottom of your jaw and pull from the cigarette between my lips.