By Jahna Bird

High beam highway silver lining your cigarette smoke

Flip the coin but there’s no telling if it’s heads or tails when its the dead of night

The bet remains indifferent, steady like the graveyard shift

Lay the rubber, embitter climbs the walls like unforgiving harmonies chattering amongst a hollow theatre stage

After the roaring crowd resides

And there’s no one left to bow for

Just us, backs dipped with ignorance, heads so low to the ground we forget our dignities

But you still light my joint out back, and I still blow the smoke into your face

Reverse the exhale back into my mouth

Grimy air filling my lungs like an oxygen tank

But it’s no easier to breathe with you, your words are firework fragments to my bark

Singe my skin with every shallow attempt at connection

I scream out the window, but she slaps back like verbatim

Once our buds fall, we evaporate with the last wisp of smog into the night

No amount of words can express how I feel for you

Because all you see that emerges from my mouth is a puff of smoke, and you call that a conversation