I don't question when I smoke.
the cigarette always burns more
quickly than I want it to,
and I breathe, deeply, the chemicals
and I wreck, superficially now, the tissues
in my respiratory tract: my lips, my
tongue, alveolar sacs.
I am assured that one day I will die.
The smoke wafts airily through my bar code,
and I rein in my life, pretending to know
that I will go with my family, my writing,
years from now, painfully, stupidly, but
not as worst as could be.
I am the fool you can know better than,
who must have missed the tv ads, and
the warning labels on the box in my hand
that you'd never let close enough to read,
because you fear smoke, as death, more
than the will-less life of career and pleasant.
I must be lazy and stupid when
I take my breaks and make you restock the
milky ways, coke bottles, neon socks on shelves
and you curse me for not taking more pride
in what?
