on the smoking habbits of queens

if you look hard, are lucky and patient, you can find the cigarette butts of your favorite kind of tobacco. i don't mean brand--that's too much to ask for, but menthol or regular.

and the variety of brands surprised me. malboro lights i expected, but parlerments? and of course reds, camels, newports, the usual characters

and that's not even the improbable ones: american spirit, lucky strike filters (haven't seen those in years), kents (what my therapist smokes), djarums, merits, benson & hedges, rollies, malboro menthol, the odd european or russian, just to name a few.

and as long as no one says anything to me, i don't feel the burn of shame.

but what it leaves me with, besides the odd smoke, is sorrow.