By: Kristin Peterson (I quit smoking in Nov. ‘22, so written before then for sure…)

Rain bounces off the pavement

Boots taking steady inventory…

Quantities of measurements of exposure versus quality of manufacture…

Streets sizzle with tires

Humans treading on

no swells to stop them in their tracks

Street lights hang suspended in time: Loop steady…

Luminous beacons, save four (or five?) of course, need change of bulb…

Stoplights fickly turn their shades: green and yellow way to go and red to stop you dead

A craggy stone and pebble bench that serves as function, not on form

Now holds the one that comes undone by life’s unfolding consequence (of inconsequential sequence)

Cigarette now cherried with the chase

Addictions held on to for the same reasons these streets sizzle

These stop lights change their tune

And this uncomfortable damn bench, now a reprieve from standing forms of submission…

Who fits in here anyways…

So that cherry turns to Ash, in fashion forms…

A sick kind of twisted Phoenix forms…

Cycles torn: Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust…

…butt to butt can as observation passes by, and in the moments form…

Thank God for that rigid, scrape ass seat

where I go to rest these bones

and smoke my shitty cigarettes

And in that seat become a form

A character now turned to setting

And all the while:

Rain bounces off the pavement

And the boots they take their measurements

On whether they should be exposed

Despite their quality intent

Intent upon the present and

Exposure to the elements

But better in a city scape

If inside plays alternative

So outside here I come to rest

Upon the rocky shores

And smoke my killer cigarettes

To take a breath and:

Pause.

Before I go to bare some more…