Cigarette Umbrellas

Your hands are cigarette umbrellas

Protecting nicotine from rain 

The tears you shed are not of loss or despair 

But of meek acceptance 

                                                               of your cognitive suicide.  

You reside in a cosmic tomb of doubt 

There are circular burns in neat rows on your arm 

A polka dot of self inflicted pain 

and from the same cigarette 

That your hands are umbrellas for.

Your hands are cigarette umbrellas 

Where mine are arbiters of pleasure 

not of sexual pleasure 

more a general satisfaction of touch. 

You are the lonely private on the barracks 

Encased in his own company 

And a welcome partner is his own gloom 

I am not. 

I’m perceived confidence in the pressure of a general hatred 

of most people 

and a twisted superiority complex 

You are perceived insecurity in the presence of an acknowledgment

of  the banality of your existence 

And we cross over more than you think. 

Your hands are still cigarette umbrellas 

But now 

They protect my nicotine from rain.