Of Darkness and Smoke

With austere black
And bright memories
I sat—
In solitude,
In silence.

The moon,
It was
A silent dark void,
Once shimmering stars
Retreating into
The obscurity.

No wind
In the distance,
No leaves
In symphony.

Just me,
I thought.
And the half-light
Of a firefly
Whizzed past
The drone.

“Dance with me,”
I screamed.
The past
Is yet unforgiven.
And the months whispered
Without a trace
Of sound;
The music still serenades
Me,
And the sunshine.

Looking away,
I closed my eyes;
I slept
In the shadows,
And waltzed
Into the light.

I looked back
At me;
My mystic mirror-
Once silvered
To a speck,
Now battling
With slow rust,
And peel.

In my hand
The blown carcass
Of a cigarette butt,
The nicotine breath
Hanging thick
In the air.

Through the slivered light
I saw.
I felt
My brimming eyes,
And the lifetime
I had lived
Through the single year-
The half in an
Infernal ecstasy,
Half in a
Seething irony.

And yet I know
I’d die again
To be scorched,
To be burnt alive
By the hostile scribe.

I lived again,
Tried as hell
To love.

But days melted
Into another,
And time stood
Shockingly still.

I stood up
And ran;
Choked myself
With smoke,
And mute.

It was you
I tried to forget;
Now it is just
Me,
And the cigarette butt.

My smoke
Still lingers
In your air;
It is the halo
I see
Beneath your smile.