Marlboro

Driving across the bridge I exhale and a clear shaft of smoke leaves my mouth. The windows are open on the Camaro, and I am driving too fast. The ground is wet, I am barely stopping the car from its continual hydroplane. I drink in the night. The cool summer breeze off of the river enters my lungs and I shake the ashes off the end of a dying cigarette.

I blink, imagining life is different, that I am someone new. When I open them again less than a second later, I am that new person. I have become all the things I never wanted to be, but perhaps I was them all along, I just accept them.

The disease of my lungs, my addiction to something I cannot let myself have, has become my whole life. I desire the things I cannot possibly have, but am satisfied when I get them momentarily.

The taste of liquor is in my mouth tonight, not because I have had some, but because I have not had any tonight. I still feel the past coming back in all my senses, and I am content.