A girl lights a cigarette in a crowded room. Fleeting angel in smoke. But she is nothing nothing nothing but a machine clicking and ticking and wanting and not getting.

She thinks how the only difference between a body and a corpse is breath and blood.

A boy lays down on a box of springs. He remembers fucking you on the bathroom floor and his hands get antsy. He tries to remember that he is not chemical. That he is not and you are not and that both of you were not, just clanking bones and air escaping between teeth.

They sit quiet and tense, like love
between them is something dangerous,a good disease maybe, like the West Nile Virus.
He had grown tired of her after the first two years and found a girl on Lantern street who spoke four different languages and had a knack for kleptomania and heroin.

She still puts notes inside of his coat pockets before work, the last one said, "I blame you for my three abortions."

Things tear quick and easy like rice paper.

But Love, you are
bright . And on a warm day in October I found you sleeping on my pillow. And I wanted to let you know,
that I haven't lit another cigarette.