Not Parliaments, made with a hollow filter
for a bump of cocaine, or
Marlboro menthols in the middle of a crowded dance floor,
minty tingle on my lower lip, or
Cloves crackling like a firework, smelling of warm holidays.
That taste. Like an autumn dessert.
Not back to back, lighting the next with the last, my index and middle fingers
knowing each other more intimately than the rest.
Not before, or during, or after a meal. Or in place of one, with wine,
because there was always wine, even when the fridge was empty.
Not over heartbreak, or arguments, each puff choking down that thing.
Replaying what I should/n’t have said. Inhaling what I could/n’t have said.
Danielle Low-Waters is a Queer Poet, analog photography and expired film enthusiast and obsessive playlist maker. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic and the Constellation Anthology edited by Yrsa Daley-Ward. She currently lives in Vallejo, California with her wife and two dogs in a Victorian home filled with art that makes their mothers uncomfortable