I wrote this poem for my friend Angela, it is why it feels good to quit smoking.

Black slugs, hold onto your chest cavity
where your heart sleeps at night
there’s a moonlight in your mouth
but it’s cloudy then, and now, and yesterday

your heart is having nightmares,
it’s bleeding more than it should,
it is bouncing in and out of your chest,
it wants to run away, it wants to leave you to die

Black slugs tumble into your mouth
as they escape the dust of your volunteer work
as you spend your money that you work hard for
for something that makes you work slower

and your fingernails turn into paper mache
slowly falling off, creating a sculpture of what you once were
you’ll be beautiful enough for an art gallery
where people will sigh at your once existence

as if they had any idea who you were in the first place

your mouth will create a new language of insides
as they retreat up to your mouth
out of your mouth
into your hands
into your hospital bed
into the ground where your insides find it familiar

your smiling will turn into a decades old fence
your lungs will turn into a broken down baby carriage
full of memories you could have continued to have

your heart will be a pin cushion for all lost hope, anyway
and your life will turn into a “what happens after you die” lie

this, my dear Angela,
is why it feels so good to quit smoking