"Do You Have A Light?"

You stain like the stale smell of a cigarette
that seeps into my sienna burnt strands of hair.
In your simple stain fashion, permanence lies deep at the scalp.

Sitting there, rotting there, with no
way to wipe away, scrub clean
without first smelling the awful
stench of smoke left in the follicles.
I inhale the fresh scent because the smell of something new is what life is all about.

Breathe it in, blow it out, with no
avenue of keeping its lingering effects out of my goddamn hair.
It's you I hear, you I see when my uncontrolled conscience turns
toward that white cloud of hypocrisy and asks, "Do you have a light?"