as I exit

A flame
dances like a ballerina
She
either
collapses along with the wind's game
or tiptoes in the scanty air

A flame
fuses with my fag in the most righteous marriage,
delivering
a spiral misty crawl upwards

The air freshener responds with a hiss
Its medicinal fragrance,
trying to assume an identity of industrial strength sweetness
that exists not

I sit on my throne
reading the paper dissolving with chronology
the nicotine evaporating into toxic inhalant

and the seconds
of my life for sale in the cubicle of plastic yellow
that holds me in

It's an asylum for me; this

So I flick into the clear pool beneath me
with careful consideration
A prick of fire
would be an unconvenient jolt back to
the corporate world that imitates gallows

As I stand up and watch the last grain of ash
take a graceful tumble down the bow
expiring in a tired sizzle,
I know I'd do the same in time to come

watching the remains of my soul

embers of any life
amble behind me as I exit
the lavatory