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In the weeks before
I quit smoking
I prepared myself for the loss
tried to enjoy each drag
but couldn't.
Sometimes didn't want to smoke at all
just thought
better get 'em in
before quittin' time
I'd try to reminisce
about favorite cigarettes I had had
like the ones just before dawn
on my balcony
in college in Los Angeles
feeling all alone in the world
with only a cigarette to keep me company
(and that's not just an expression)
All the capri pants and white baseball caps all
the glitzy-glatz the layers of shellac of it
all tucked away in bed
Sky orange from smog
purple from The Staples Center
While I sat there I was thinking
The land had to change so much in order to get
out here
but more importantly for our purposes
I was thinking
I will remember this
I will remember this because
this is the most by myself I'll ever be
way out here in the middle of nowhere
U.S.A.
with only a cigarette
Since I was always talking to my past and future
selves about the idea of it
and I was always thinking about
how addictions are just a way for us
to feel less lonely
and cigarettes especially
because they don't vanish suddenly
like pills or whiskey swills
they take their time
let you get used to the idea
it shouldn't have surprised me
that when I found you smoking
out on the front stoop a few nights ago
I started babbling this very nonsense
Oh my aching teeth and gums
but also the loneliness of it all
like deciding to let a friend drift away
In fact I started smoking
when I met my best friends
My parents called them a bad influence
but they're still my friends
Almost half my life I've been under a
bad
influence
My family taught me the glamour in this
cues verbal and non-
So my whole life, then
We have our own private ways of punishing
each other for our indiscretions
as all families do
Out on the stoop I told you
that all day (Day Three)
I felt like I was reaching around for something
that wasn't there
and how terribly alone that can make one
feel
I knew what you would say before you said it
but it still made me sad
That's how I feel all the time
But back to Favorite Cigarettes I Have Had
Oh I give up
Except for the balcony ones
they all seem one long chain to me now
a well-behaved narrative thread
like "high school" or "2001"
and I am not sad anymore
as this is Day Six not Day Three
but I am still thinking about
how I prepared my future self
for nostalgia
and am remembering my past self's
lonely nights on stoops and balconies
and wondering whether or not that feeling
is still stuck inside me somewhere
Came across feminine, marvelous, and tough
again but couldn't remember the first time
whether it was Berrigan or out-of-context
or you it was definitely you
and I wanted to go to the next room to ask
but if you were so sad or mad (or something—
you hate psychobabble but the words are
at least specialized not sing-song) if you were so
____________ that you wouldn't help me open
the jar of tomato sauce (I banged it against the
counter
loudly which I'm sure you enjoyed but you might
have felt unsettled by FUCK & GODDAMMIT
me newly bold trying to model
dads-about-the-house
where usually I'd cry) if you were so BLANK
that you
wouldn't help me top my ravioli then why on earth
would you
reminisce about a line of poetry with me me
who
I who've loved you days and years long enough
to start
forgetting these details and I can hear you chiding
now
deriding now you always forget ..................... so what?
The world needs poetry to remember and I do too.
On the occasion of it being my birthday and
somebody having stolen your bike
Oh, Andy—Don't let the haters get you down.
Oh, Andy—Andy made me subtle.
Oh, Andy. Sings like a dream-a gravelly backroad of
a dream.
Oh, Andy! What a salty pucker.
Oh, Andy—lickity-split, even sans wheels.
Oh, Andy. What grey eyes today.
Oh, Andy. Went to wrapping paper school.
Oh, Andy. What sturdy toenails, plinking like
eighty-eights.
Oh, Andy. My cherry pit. Pistachio shell. My
strawberry effing cheesecake.
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