Cigarettes

This poem was written in response to a spoken word poem I used in class the other day. It's called "The Gun" by a poet named Diego. Below what I wrote as a sample to my students.

Watch me, watch me get pulled deep into lungs
and breathed out in wreaths of smoke.

Watch me get sold to minors across the counter.

Watch me light up like the devil’s eye
as a 12 year old pulls me in for the first time.

Can you see me? Can you see me in the ad with the legless man,
victim or freak?

Can you see me in your daddy’s pocket as he reaches for another puff?

Can you hear my cellophane crinkle
as my momma opens a new pack?

Inhaled en masse at an AA meeting, multiple red eyes winking.

The crispy crackle of a dying man’s lungs.

The wheeze of the stoma that replaced my mother-in-law’s larynx

The hacking morning cough of every long-time smoker

Can you feel me? Cheap paper wrapped around too many chemicals to count.

Can you feel me? Yellowing teeth and fingers and skin.

Clothes heavy with smoke because I am inhaled death.

I am a cartoon apocalypse on a cowboy horse,

come to take your daddies, mommies, aunts and uncles.

Can you feel me deep in the spirits and souls of every city, every state, every nation?

Can you stop me?

Can you stop me?

A crisp snap of the breaking cylinder,

Pinkness returning to the lung,

A cough silenced, a world of scents returning.

Can you stop me now?