who she is, I have no idea,
but she brings me cigarettes and a reason to smoke.
the reason, of course, is
to combat the slow decay of reminiscence,
so that I may kill myself with something tangible.
sometimes she wanders in,
sits down next to me and tells me stories of death.
still, she gives them endings
that make me smile and feel bad for doing so;
she's trying to trick me into having a conscience.
one particular tombstone tale,
- an epilogue, as I have come to call them -
about a horse and it's heavy jockey,
was the best by far, and she thought so too,
because she laughed for hours after telling it.
The jockey, currently
confined in the hopeless shackles of third place,
decided to jettison himself, hoping
to lighten the load and give the horse a chance;
the horse won, he died, and the crown went wild.
She doesn't have a name,
there is just a series of noises I make when
I want to call her, and they sound like I'm dying.
Cough, splutter, and there's a cigarette in my mouth
immediately, while she silently watches.
I'll die one day,
all because of her.
She is regret.
