Limb

The cigarette woke up thinking of you--- and that for seven days you are in pause. It is an impasse. Mother says these things are part of the process, part of life committed to another life. It happens but you never leave, not when you've made a vow.

The cigarette had slept beside a hard-boiled egg, buried by the warmth of pillows and comforters and a palm patting its swollen eyes to sleep. It was a womb and there the cigarette felt safe--- from life's nightmares that have broken it but continues to fight to make whole--- from this, from what love has become, from the brutality of you.

Its heart had stopped beating. It felt it stop. It feels it. The pain is there, it knows, but its will is keeping it frozen. If it lets go, the heart will break. It refuses to. It will not break.

So this morning the coffee awakens, sees, and asks the cigarette what mangled it. The cigarette said it was this and you and the us--- seven days of silence. As if we never was, is not is, and no tomorrow.

Each word--- the explanations---- a tear: You no longer want to be with…You are miserable with… You are unhappy… Resentment… Anger…Tired…

The coffee gives the cigarette a gnome’s wisdom--- holds the cigarette’s hand the whole time, tight and warming the cigarette’s cold hands, “Happiness is an inside job. Unhappiness is not caused by other people… If your’re making…unhappy…Then fuck… Made…Unhappy…”

And more words to feed the cigarette, to keep it burning and going …Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional

…If you lose it then it does not matter

…Don’t waste a good crisis: it’s an opportunity to become a better person or a bitter person

…You have the right to be depressed. But you don’t have the right to exercise it

…And if that man did not write a book, given what happened to him, he would have killed himself…

The coffee says that the cigarette may be complicated but not really complicated, “You are actually a simple person. This, this is one thing that makes you happy---” and places its palm on the cigarette’s head.

The cigarette begins to cry, chokes out the words that had ripped open thin scabs, bleeding, unforgivable.

The coffee closes its eyes--- pain, rage---- says, “Your child will be a very lucky child. Because all that love in you will go to that child…”

You know how to love…

You know how to give…

You know how to listen…

You know how to be with people when they are absolutely alone and in hell…

You know how to sacrifice…Too many sacrifices already…

The coffee continues, “… You are so many things… And your mind, that mind is brilliant…Understands…”

The cigarette says, “7 days won’t be enough.”

Not for you.

Not for me.

Not for you.

Not for this.

The coffee nods, “3 months. Habit.”

The cigarette says, “…Be away…”

And the morning bird wakes up, asks upon seeing the coffee and cigarette, “What is it?”

What is normal? Is it this absence? Is it this distance that has become necessary? Is the blindness? Is it that future unhappiness?

The cigarette sighs, “Can be classic motherfucking mid-life crisis.”

Is it being that rice chewed for years and now being spitted out? The plans now for a future without… You just don’t get to pick what you like. Love is acceptance. And vows made always kept. You don’t just get to leave and come back whenever you want…

The cigarette laughs, “…Well, hell, he is a man after all… The man of them all...”

The cigarette looks at the clock--- it doesn’t want it to end but maybe it is the end. In the clock, there are twelve tocks--- numbers can begin to be alone and one can be the end or the beginning of another.