I keep the windows closed,
in the afternoons,
while smoking cigarettes
in between books and notes. 
I close my eyes and
this smell of burning tobacco in stagnant air
re-creates those dark rooms in Philadelphia
which we walked through together. 
Without touch,
without sight,
this scent
is the only sense at my disposal
and it is the least I can do.

I’ll dream of him,
sometimes incandescent,
sometimes junk sick.

He doesn’t know how his eyes haunt me,
stored inside me forever,
like a splinter in a wound that has closed.

I want more
than a shrouded existence
hiding behind drugs and failure,
waiting for what never arrives.

BB

REHAB

by Sinta Jimenez

artwork by Sinta Jimenez