I
(staring)
100 cigarettes chosen to BE smoked before you HAVE to smoke
100 cigarettes I could have smoked since I quit
100 cigarettes equals four days equals
200 sighs sinking back smoky breath breathed through nose
parted lips smoke wisps rising staring through 100 day dreams
staring @ a sky of 100 people
holding a near perfect drug
wrapped in white paper sitting in a smoky room
breathing 100 cool breezes
the hottest days of 100 degrees
waking you up
breezes pushing the sway as they perk you up & down your back
100 masseuses massaging messages in fingertips - motions through
knotted shoulders as 100 cigarettes smolder as you hold her in your arms
100 meals when your hungry
desert to make your lungs ache
sand to make your eyes cake
the sand man is coming sooner - sit still - listen to him singing 100 songs of nicotine muzak instilling a calmness so give the monkey a number:100 beasts breaking boredom with 100 house guests over visiting never leaving equals grieving over a heartbreak is 100 cigarettes smoked because I just didn't care.
II
(100 vertical tan filters sticking up)
I'm driving with 100 thoughts � my lungs aching but I can smell - doughnut shops - bread bakeries flowers on the highway side @ 75 miles an hour & 300 yards my nose - super charged - French fries past a McDonalds grass & gas - exhaust fumes a sewer a treatment plant perhaps this is not a good idea after all.
III
(tan filters Jam Packed)
I'm sitting with 100 people thinking, smoke filling the room sitting with 100 people thinking I'm thinking of billboards
of health boards of heartboards
surgeons sitting on heart seats
listening to heart beats
the hotseat restored trying to restore lungs with emphysema wrecked from fumes from burning fumes exhaust of grass on gas - a smoke haze - thick haze covers the room from 100 cigarettes
my eyes blur
detour
from reality utter banality of my head pounding aching for a feeling in between fingers from the hands of anything with the drug
even 100 alien cigars from mars holding me feeding it in aliens with white tendrils red tipped & gripped sticking burning sticks trailing smoke feet thick sticking camel butts in my ears in the tip of my... letting me lick the ashtray when I've had my fill - telling me to amscray -get outta here but they died yesterday - my Martians wiped by burning sticks
while sitting around smoking around their TV laughing @ Johnny Carson Carson
carsin carcinogenic mace sucked in by my aliens 100 of my Martians shunning those who didn't breath in their clouds
of dust from rusty butts farted in their sky
blocking the sun
boiling the water their oceans their world a whole world forced to smoke in one room together printing a science fiction that sells RJ Reynolds - HG Wells didn't tell that was why they all had to come
because they had 100 left
just 100 cigarettes left
100 cigarettes burning all around me.
IV
(jam packed vertical in an ash tray)
100 cigarettes equals 100 minutes less to live my life time 1 hour & forty minutes off my life 1 minute for every one sucked down
quitting this long equals 100 minutes I'll live longer wanting another with every ounce of my blood pleading aggravations bleeding the patience of everyone around me!
Can I have just one drag?
I'll dress in drag - be like Cathy - I'll jump in the bag - Sit there thinking gotta stop thinkingrightbrainthinking left brain reminding me:
if you lock in a room an Evangelistic Born Again Non-Smoker Body Builder with a Bull Horn, a 2 pack a day smoker, a carton of Camel No Filters & a lighter... for a month, the evangelist will walk out alive saying "just because I gave up cigarettes, doesn't mean I stopped smokin... Anybody got some dental floss?"
V
(100 cigarettes vertical in an oval ash tray)
Ashes - Ashes - no room to fall down Jam packed 100 cigarettes 4 times 24 in a pack - 96 plus 4 - 4 days worth of smoke in my lungs in my clothes 4 days worth of smoke in my hair in my nose my nose my nose doesn't work the same
my bodies not the same
since I smoked 100 cigarettes
since I gave up smoking cigarettes
100 cigarettes since I took my last breath breathed in tilted back watched the air floataway.
VI
(eyes closed)
I can smell 100 cigarettes standing vertical in an oval ashtray, in an Atwells Avenue cafe, there's one half smoked, it's talking to me "You need a light?" "No thanks, I don't smoke."
Honestly, it�s time to quit again.