PETER STUYVESANT
A poem
PETER STUYVESANT Look at my selenite ribs making a clear, blue morning out of black lungs. Your kiss is carcinogen. Probably. I would have never picked up a cig if it weren’t for the detrimental gap between my lips tired of ad libs and quick quips and not enough your hips. And not knowing what the fuck you’re supposed to do with all your hands at any given moment. We touch tips, locking eyes, as I pull the embers from Marlboro red straight into Stuyvesant. I blow smoke onto your glossy eyes, like, stop looking at me that way. Under your prudent eyeline, I swear I forget it’s possible to die from this shit. I say, light me and lose it when you don’t set me on fire.
"And not knowing
what the fuck
you’re supposed to do
with all your hands
at any given moment."
😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨
The cigarette becomes less about smoke and more about proximity, risk, wanting to be seen and undone at the same time.
The line about not knowing what to do with your hands captures that restless, almost adolescent desire so well. It is intimate without trying too hard.
There is something compelling about the push and pull between self-destruction and longing to be set alight by someone else.