ISSUE 15 

Aspen Everett

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Longing Lit My Cigarette
 

What are you afraid of? I asked

the ghost of longing late one night.

 

We were sharing a cigarette

lit by the stars.

 

Longing told me they were afraid​

of feasts, how one could eat and drink

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all that was offered, kick back,

and pick their teeth with time.

 

I asked longing if distant lovers

kept the mechanism going—

 

if ghosts recognized the living?

I asked fear for another cigarette.

 

She said this will be the end,

and handed me a nuclear winter,

 

lit the cigarette with a planet on fire.

Longing asked me about the future.

 

I said I wore a gold ring I made for me

when I married mortality.

 

She had loved me longer

than I had loved myself.

 

Longing asked me what I did for fun,

and I said yearn, or put it in a poem—

 

and this is what I am afraid of,

to live a life not worth writing down.

 

Longing said to me,

tell me again about lips?

 

I said a kiss is the only moment

I know I’ll live forever,

 

and fear sighed, understanding perfectly,

and smoked our last cigarette,

 

until we all put out the stars

and went inside.

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