four thousand and one

i've smoked about four thousand
cigarettes this year and i still see nothing
but ash and empty packs. i had a lot to learn.
i didn't learn any of it.

all was funeral gray and washing dishes till
my fingers felt like land mines. we were
not finished being dumb when you died
and i found out that night under the speckled
window lights still on how those lights could
look like stars if we looked at them in just the right
way--

and i didn't believe you were really
dead, not then because i couldn't shake
those two in the morning smokes
all summer while you drank
your beer and i my diet coke and
talked about nothing in particular and it
was not amazing but it was nice

and i'm scared to read the things that i
wrote then because i'm scared i'll
run out of god and run out of cigarettes
and run out of money and run out of you
like i'm running out of
this year blowing confetti
poppers at the bleeding sun that comes
out every night and shrinks and shrinks
to be the size of you when you could fit
in a syringe and i want

to find you before this year ends so
i will keep on smoking cigarettes
and look for you every night at
two in the morning cause they're
lying and you never left at all.