I chew toothpicks as I quit smoking

Whole forests are cleared to make them

Some are pointed at both ends

When only one sharp end is enough

 

Other drugs collude to raise me from

the dark brick alleys of 1970

Whole decades of time are cleared

My obsessions are pointed on one end

 

My mind wanders until it finds the heat

Remora-like, I attach there and won’t let go

I enjoy the stabbing pain of guilt, of rejection

and of perfect nothingness

 

The day brightens for a moment

When you bend over me and ask

if I am okay.  I am always okay

In that instant.