Post a Comment On: A Creative Panic

 I wrote “Cigars” about a friend of my brother’s who drown when he was 14. The conversation I had with him within the poem was, to the best of my recollection, true. I held a certain amount of amorphous guilt about his death. I’d seen him a day or so before his death and, for selfish teenage boy reasons, I ushered him away. I had a certain amount of trouble reconciling my feelings partially due to the fact that I had any. In the town where I grew up everyone knew a dead kid.

Cigars
A year ago todayWe sat at my tableAnd talked about the big and the smallA year ago todayWe talked first lovesFirst lustsThe   women we had andThe women we wantedA year ago todayWe stood over a machineAnd speculated what was makingIt tick and wheeze and sputter soA year ago we stared at starsAnd wondered their purposeWe sat smoking cigarsTheir pungent odorIrritating our eyesI told you my worriesYou said “Everything works out”You smiled and made it all simpleI don’t smoke cigars anymoreMy eyes still water thoughBecause a year ago tomorrowI saw them pull youFrom the water.
A pretty childish punch at the end there, but hey, at least I was trying to write my feelings, right? Oh, and the “me” in the poem was totally lying. I still smoked cigars.