Coffee and Cigarettes

Holding cigarettes up to the windshield

Using the headlights of the oncoming traffic

To see how many drags you have left

On your way to work

You realize with the best of reality

This is your first steps of making it through a

Long, cold, miserable day

When coffee is the only thing warm you will feel

On those cold winter mornings

When the breeze cuts through to your core

Sharp

Like a blade

Like the edge of paper

Like a sward

Cold, you trudge on in the darkness of morning

Frost crunching under your feet

Your breath

Freezing in front of you as you speak   

All of this

For a paycheck that barely pays the rent

This poem is from my book : Petals Falling