smoking
i've never smoked a cigarette with anyone but jed.
senior year, driver's licenses,
our town is so many miles
with nowhere to go.
nowhere but the woods,
where leaves block out the haze of the city
blocking out the stars.
we pass the cigarette hand to hand, and
somehow i can see the trail of smoke in the
darkness. the way i can see jed's eyes
even when there isn't any light.
it would never have occurred to me to smoke.
but one day we're at the 7-11 and jed says buy a pack.
we have been in the 7-11 for twenty minutes
reading newsprint about bat boy and the
shocking! gay! love! affair! of someone
in hollywood, and jed jokes that if our local
paper was like that, we'd certainly be
headline news.
i have never wanted to be a cowboy
but i ask for marlboros anyway.
i have to prove myself
with the photo that doesn't really look like me,
only a department of motor vehicles version.
i don't know whether to smile
and it shows. i thank the shopguy like
he's delivered the cigarettes to my door.
it's only when we're back in the car that
jed asks me if i got matches.
I am so new at this.
jed is not a smoker
but he's smoked.
i am not a smoker
and i have never smoked.
i light matches for candles
for sitting in my room and wanting
a flicker of life, a flicker of mood.
the smoke i've known is
vanilla scented.
i think he will laugh but instead
he tells me he loves the way i am.
hearing those words is like
being handed flowers. we walk
to the woods and find the one bench,
our hidden observation post.
as we sit on the carved names of other discoverers
he takes the cellophane from the pack,
smoothes it between his fingers,
and folds it into a ring.
i open the cardboard,
pull out a cigarette, slightly amazed
at how light it is. like a piece of chalk
made of paper.
jed and i don't have much in common.
he is much stronger than i think i am. he is
mischievous, outgoing, ready to soar
through clouds while i often feel
like the cloud itself. we are a strange pair
and we love that. we've been going
to school together since sixth grade
but we didn't really meet until last year's art class.
we had both drawn escher patterns on our jeans.
do you like magritte? he asked
and at first i didn't really know jed was
although i was sure he knew that i was
but gradually we both knew
and we knew.
i hold the cigarette like i'm in a black-and-white movie.
but when jed lights the match, it spreads to color,
his skin in the campfire light, the spark of his eyes
as he leans in to me. when the match touches,
he says, breathe it in. i wait for the glow,
the yellow smoldering to orange. i wait
and then i inhale. one long drag as jed shakes off
the match. i can taste the dark spice of the smoke.
i take it in too long, too fast. my body says not yet
and pushes the smoke back out in a cough. i feel
foolish, but jed smiles and says i'm doing fine,
better than he did. he takes the cigarette
from my hand, brings the orange deeper, then
hands it back to me and says try again.
my parents are okay with me being gay
but they would kill me if they saw me with
a cigarette. which makes sense, in a way.
my friend pete would also have something
to say. he says his body is a temple, and i think
that's the problem with the two of us lately. i don't want
my body to be a temple. i don't want it to be
worshiped or congregated. pete is an athlete
and my next door neighbor and we've known
each other so long that we can talk about anything
except jed. or what pete calls
that whole thing.
the second breath works. the smoke
fills my air. it doesn't feel good or bad
just a buzz of different. we sit down and pass it
back and forth. it is hard for us to be alone
between school and our friends and our families
and his track practice and my literary magazine.
so this pause is heaven, feeling entirely
open. we talk and sit close and the only
time that passes is the ash that falls.
i have never had anybody talk to me like this.
this is not a flirty sixth-grade phone call or
bantering with friends or words passed in a note.
i feel that if my soul could talk it would
talk like this.
i am willing to smoke the cigarette until
it disappears. jed tells me when it's time to stop.
i reach into the pack for another but jed
says one is enough. anyone can do more,
but it will be our thing to do just one.
we talk until our voices are tired
and then we talk about what we're doing
tomorrow. when i get home, the pack safely hidden
in the trunk of my car, i am surprised
to find that my hand still smells like smoke.
i know i should wash it, hide it too, but