Salt lick

Standing as we did, alone yet together,

Our embers lighting the timers of shared experience.

Conversation lit with the same temporary spark of habit

You could find anyone in the same desperate position of

Needing to be alone amongst people.

“Where are you from?”

Digging for clues that would illuminate the short narrative’s

Purpose and prose.

“It’s not where you’re from, but how you come”

A rebuttal that would cause just enough self reflection that could

Rattle a would be story teller.

Some would pursue, needing to gain some momentum to quell

The damning sense of self preservation.

“Have you got a spare cigarette?”

Spare, I wonder, what a notion.

Of all the places in life one could find me

Do I seem as a man of abundance?

What do I have to spare?

A word, a dime, a light,

a timer for their

Own place amongst the contemplative.

I always had a spare for I wished

to spare the next soul

Of such a maddening dialogue.

The ember reaches its final furlong in the race for last place

Close with a joke, a one liner, something to bring a smile

To the ritual of slow suicide.

Behind me, someone didn’t have a spare, the result was

Contested with classical insults.

I turn, pitching my timer as quickly as I appeared to create it,

It’s picked by another traveller before it can hit the ground.

“Damn bums, they had their chance”

Damn people, they always hate what they see in themselves.

The bartender is pouring my drink before I can even breath the

Last plume of isolation.

Starting the timer for when I smoke again.