Cigarette Halos
At midnight she hums in prayer,
A vibration which resonates outward, forward, and away
Pushed into the darkness,
Her breath will steal you stray
It is night and she has learned best to radiate in shadow
Her hair is the blonde of snow,
A foretelling of what we already know
She lives in the deep, and shuddering, agonizing cold
Tight and thin,
Pale and abandoned,
Her skin is a coffin which keeps on rattling,
The remains inside; hollowed and expanded,
Her body, a sunken city; a valley in every corner and mountain tip across each bone
Her eyes have died,
A very dark brown,
A hazard of being in reclusion,
She wants something more
Like the people beside her,
We choose to live in delusion and memories
With kisses and very little hope
An actress,
A singer,
A desire
I have applauded them for their success,
We are what we want to be,
We are what we were meant to be,
An actress,
A singer,
A desire
There is a hushed silence among the people that reside here,
Their stories go on untold
Behind doors the walls whisper
Secrets and lies,
We deceive
And then we die
She wants to live,
But most of all,
She wants to survive
Sometimes I see the monsters approach her,
The white light she stands under is a beacon
They are moths that cannot fly
Instead they crawl toward her,
A fractured light is what guides them,
Through a dirty, ugly, muddy path,
She is the gold at the hands of their wrath
She stands under it nonetheless,
Against the back wall of a rusted gas station,
Against the cool cover of dust which has layered on a street lamp
She has seen these things before
Behind doors and in alleys,
She has been here before
They like her dress, it is far too short for this cold
She stares at the ground below
She does not have a home,
Her glamour
Does not break.
She spares no blinks,
Oh, to get on with it,
Her time is precious,
She has been here all day,
Her presence smells of gasoline
She
Is
Flammable
With a cigarette between thinned, red lips she plays dangerous games
Greasy hair is pulled behind her in a short tail,
This is territory she knows.
She covers her head with a hood, and her hands shake
I do not know if she is cold,
or scared,
or high-
I nod, because we both understand why.
Clouds of smoke rise above her,
She drags them out like carbon dioxide,
They cling in the air,
Thick and tainted,
Pure- they are blinding,
Especially on these nights,
When the skies are black and white,
When our virtues are faint
Over here, there aren’t any stars,
But I have seen many angels
We share stories in cigarette halos,
I do not believe in God,
But these are the ones I can relate to
An actress,
A singer,
A desire
We smile, and continue on,
passing each other by.