Sublimation

mirror, mirror, miryo

the smoke emerges from your lips, spindly grey arachnid legs prying their way out of your chiseled jaw, and all i can wonder is if you kissed me then if i'd find my own tongue covered in nicotine cobwebs.

in the dimming light you remind of those black-and-white photos of those old hollywood stars, like you're james dean with that rebel-without-a-cause look of jadedness, except you're only five years younger than james dean when he died, so i can't imagine why you're already stricken with that perpetual look of boredom on your face. i can smell the nauseating mix of cigarette smoke and alcohol in a haze around you, and i picture my own lungs clouding over like black fog condensing on a glass mirror. the illuminated television flickers reflected on your face in a sickening deficient glow, as if you haven't seen the light of the sun in weeks.

we haven't touched in months, you and i, though i wonder if your translucent skin will tear if we claw at each other the way we used to, as if we were prying through all those layers of skin to take hold of each other's shuddering hearts. you used to remind me of a god, with the starched white sheets draped across your naked form like grecian robes, and whenever i was with you it felt as if we'd be immortal forever with ambrosia flowing in our veins, but all that's left now are the marbled ruins and corroded statues that look more like amputated war veterans than gods and goddesses.

you never liked to use that one word with me. you called it chemistry instead, as if we were two particles in random motion that became bonded in a chance collision. all i can recall from those days was a fever of smoke and heat, tantric and exothermic and irreversible. the only warmth that's left now is from the smothered glow of your cigarettes, and all i can wonder is if you've already sublimated before my eyes in those trailing wisps of smoke.