I have watched the world burn from my little perspective:
the stairs have already turned to ash - so there's
no fire escape

just the last few drags
of my flesh
along the concrete lining
of my lungs

then telling me I would die of cancer:
I must scoff at the Surgeon General

because I have watched the sky fill with mushroom clouds
or clouds
that whispered how they'd blot out the sun
and make a cancerous tangle
of the cells within my crimson skull

they were clouds, I wager
because later that night
it would rain
and the rain melted away the metal (from my car)

but that was after the light
had already set from the stars
and my eyes were snuffed out
by the passing breeze

right now: these leaves are still whole
right now: these are the preludes to my empty cranial cavity
right now: these are the premises that gave rise to
depravity.

I have watched the world burn, with my little magnifying glass
the stairs already turned to ash; the skin covering me
is silicon.

when I tried to tell you about the lost cause of tobacco
you went out for cigarettes (like my father did 20 years ago)
I'm still waiting for you to bring me another pack

but I know, as I feel the earth shake
I know, as I observe the background break
this will be my final smoke

you won't make it back with heartache
and my father was just a passing
cliche joke

this final line I write, if you read it my dear:
this is the last toke
upon my spinal cord

I am trying to write this one line over and over again
into the flesh of my forearm:

Lover, I watched the world burn -- and in the time it took you
to drive here
to a gas station five blocks away

I have turned from youthful con man
into a pile of purple sludge

you can blame the four horsemen of the apocalypse
or take responsibility: slay my parents

they did not prepare me properly
for the end of the world:

I was caught without cigarettes to bargain my inheritance of the earth
and though meek I am.

I possess too much wealth.
so I put this last burning cinder out upon the scars of years
that mother had used
to try to teach me the evil of girls

I unlearned that from your first kiss
and now that you are sleeping beneath the potted plants
here on my overhanging porch:

dearest lover - bring me back those cigarettes.
I need a final smoke before the last scene

when all the lights go out on this earth.
the earth will sing.