Interpreting the circumstances of reality
Is all about perspective.
I pondered this
While walking down the street
With Ryan. Watched him pick through ashtrays
Stationed outside the bars,
For cigarettes that he could confiscate
The last few drags from.
“That’s disgusting.”
I told him.
“What if some cold sore lipped fuck
Had their lips around those filters?”
He lit one of the re-burns,
Behind his back a full moon gleamed,
Illuminating a ring around his blonde hair
Like a halo,
But he was no angel.
I heard a demon laughing
In his cough.
“Could be someone like that.” He said.
“Or maybe it was some bitch
With big tits
And a big ass! Just waiting for me to fuck it.”
“Maybe…” I said.
“But we all know pornography is fake
So why trust your fantasies?”
Void of tobacco,
His re-burn reached the filter.
He threw the butt onto the ground,
With the other hand
He fished inside his pocket
For another. We approached a crosswalk
A red hand flashed on a small screen
Above our heads. Advising us
To wait our turn.
I pushed an arrow on the stoplight
Alerting the mechanism
That we wished to cross.
A robotic voice responded,
With overtones of a white-man’s throat.
“Please wait.” The voice repeated.
We stood there staring at the cars
Passing us by.
“I don’t jerk off.”
Ryan said. “And I like to think of
Not so much who smoked it before me,
Rather who is smoking it now.”
“Well, beggars cant be choosers.” I said.
“Yes they can…everything is a choice.”
He flicked the cigarette onto a snowbank.
An orange glow faded from the re-burn
As moisture soaked the fragile inferno.
“Right…so how do we make the right choice?”I asked.
He cackled.
“I don’t know, man. I figure if I wake up tomorrow,
alive, I must have done it right yesterday.”
He then proceeded
To pick through another ashtray.
I watched the ashes
Turn his clean fingernails
To black.
A.j. Binash is a post-post-post-modernist poet from La Crosse, WI. He has released a book of poetry entitled Cautionary Tales of an American Boy Out Past Curfew (Rattlesnake Valley Publishing) . He has also been featured in the W.F.O.P. (Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets) Muse- Letter and Murmurations Magazine, among others.
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