I remember you told me once, while you were watching your cigarette glare against the night, that the burning paper around the base of the cherry was like the oroboros, chasing its own tail; a tiny hot serpent holding together your branded little world.

I also remember cocking my head, crossing my legs at the ankles and playfully reminding you of my favorite reason for my lack of your favorite vice: “They say every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off your life.”

Your hands gave a small twitch, one ashing and the other curling toward itself for a split second. Your shoulders giving a tiny leap, you shrugged off the numbers and told me for the hundredth time without speaking how little regard you held for that idea.

Humming as nodded at the familiar exchange, I thought about how slowly time had been passing for you; your mother was so sick, your father kept signing those checks in impersonal black ink and we sat out the rest of your cigarette in simultaneous affectionate silence.














On your twenty-third birthday, you told me that you’d made a total of $276,000 off your father; you were the warm little mistake that he washed his hands monthly of with a little slip of paper worth a thousand dollars.

I remember you would always tap the envelope with a nail, thin scar of a smile twisting your words, “This month’s blood money is in; let’s go do something fun.” Grinning back, I’d always make some joke about your rich blood as I took you by the hand.














I remember the day your mother died too; it was late September, storming something fierce. I’m sure the cliché would have made you grit your teeth had you been paying attention, but nonetheless it was raining, hard and steep, and the call came in the late night, just as we were crawling into bed. Snatching your cell phone up in spider-quick hands, it was as if you already knew she was going. Without a word, you grabbed your keys and I stood, grabbing your coat.

As we tore out of the alley behind the house, I watched the oroboros flit around your lips, bright against the yellow-splattered window and prayed to Anyone and Everyone that we would make it in time for you to see her out.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve been proven foolish for praying to some imaginary friend in the sky. Just as we could see the hospital in the hazy distance, someone mistook red for green and our world imploded. Safety glass stuttered across your face and stumbled into my mouth as I threw an arm out; metal churned and squealed, a sacrificial piglet slit from guts to gore for a greedy mouth.














When my vision came skulking back, I remember your eyes, the first thing I saw—empty, staring out what used to be the windshield, neither tear nor terror to be found. Reaching over, I noticed all the blood and your left hand, nearly split in two between the middle and ring fingers. Breathing out through your broken nose brought a few stringy globs of crimson and your gaze wandered, wounded, searching for me.

That gaze and the ring of your cell phone arrived simultaneously and I picked them both off the floor. I opened the little bundle of technology much in the way a death row convict steps into his noose; the rain crawled down my face as I turned my eyes to you, the message clear and white and dead.














I remember after your mother was gone that you would cash your father’s love into hundreds and stuff them all in a jar on the back porch, proclaiming it our Stormy Fund. “Don’t you mean Rainy Day?” I’d quipped, reaching over to light your slim white pill, as close to your habit as I had ever been willing to venture.

“Rainy day? Hon, we’re living one long, rainy day.” Patting the glass with your scarred palm, you nodded and let smoke sift between your teeth, “Just wait. Some day, it’ll really storm, and then we’ll have this to burn.”














I know you didn’t mean to leave me so soon. You had been having so much trouble sleeping and your near-constant smoking never helped. How many nights we spent out on the porch, under a blanket waiting for your sleeping pills to kick in, I can’t even begin to count.

My head on your thigh, I would fight sleep for all I was worth until you would lean back against the siding and ask me to dream for you. Then I dreamed for all I was worth, a million things you never had, but more than deserved; a million lives that should have been yours, and half a million that would be before I was done with you.














But then, you were gone. That night, you called, voice quiet and murmuring, while I was sprawled behind the counter at work, counting down the hours until daylight. “I’m chasing my own tail, hon; do you think I’ll catch it?”

Swallowing once, I turned to stare at the cigarettes on the wall behind me, nodded even though you couldn’t see me, “…Yes. Yes, you will. I know it.” Had I known what I know now, I would have added ‘because I love you’ to the end of that. But I didn’t and now I itch to say it with every breath.














I quit my job the night of your wake. Before I left, I bought myself a carton of your favorite cigarettes with a crisp hundred dollar bill and walked all the way home in my somber suit, turning your favorite lighter over and over in my pocket.

Once there, I plucked our blanket off the floor of the porch and opened the first pack, feeling strange that I was lighting a cigarette for my own lips instead of yours. Breathing in, my eyes slipped shut with the burn; the nearly-imperceptible hiss of the cherry was as soft as my name from your throat and my heart slouched behind my ribs.

The discarded butts began to line up, each small spine twisting out in quiet indignation and the night burned with me; when morning eventually broke across my mouth, it couldn’t touch me. Not anymore.














But don’t worry. I know you can’t have gone far, and though it may be a mere seven minutes at a time, I’m catching up.