Paradise lost

I’m determined to stop!

As my lips curl around another soggy end

Bleeding with brown stuff

The noxious fumes cloud my mind

Hushing me back to a drowsy sleep.

It can’t be that hard, I hear darkened lungs

Speak in words that I can only describe as

Chronic. Wheezing and gurgling…to remind me

The build-up is only because I’m over 40.

10 years ago I bought this place.

Did the maths and sums and said I could

Afford it if I stopped. Put the extra cash

In my coffee jar, then could plan on holidays for the future.

I looked at myself in the mirror this morning

And had lips blackened where I had sucked

And mused, the exhaust pipe of my car

Looks cleaner, my teeth, forever scrubbing

To remove the stubborn tar.

If I stop I could lose weight, or would that be put it on

As my antipsychotic medication clashes with

The chemicals I breath in. I’m only eating meat now

My breath the smell of dead cows

In formaldehyde… I’ve put on a kilo

Since I last weighed myself.

Live or die, it’s up to you. The pictures of

Bleeding gums and open heart surgery

Is head line news. Now there thinking of selling them

In plain packaging surely that should do the trick.

Or maybe pink elephants do fly and men love chick flicks.

I’m a writer and surely this is cathartic and a part of my craft

What else would I do? Tell you what at 50 I’ll get married

And share a cigarette with my missus after our night of passion

On our honey moon and to hell with the stars and the moon.