How I Gave Up Smoking

I tasted those final hours

in the palette of days

before your passing

whilst you lay tormented

and spitefully mindless

me awake in dreams

of decay and frailty

selfishly owning that pain

and claiming it's stake

the foreshadow

as close as we ever came

to bonded intimacy

martyr, victim, nonsuch saint

I bought those stories

with my lack of currency

whilst breathing the cruelness

of your rancid unjust world

I paid your subordinate

when you fled this realm

that legacy was untenable

with vicious intent

raw breath, bared teeth

you left that gift of hell

amidst cup ringed tables

and yellowed photographs

Tears fell amidst final defeat

with no settlement of close

simply one last fuck you

from that faceless conjuror

who melded this unlikely union

stretching the fabric of insight

may have blinded my eyes

yet I now see through mirrors

mirrors.........