You are Newports on any day
smoke fuming from the sleeves of a military jacket
coiling like dragon's breath in moonlit air

It's mauled interior defines your brokenness
and sometimes
sometimes it seeps out in the bags beneath your eyes
I know you are tired
I can read it in the notches etched into your digits like reverse braille
if I run my hand across them, they would tell me how many times you almost lost your fingers to the blade

Your hands have hurt before
but only in the name of rebuke
they have marked obedience into backs
they have taken material things only to replace them with life long virtues
replaced them with thanksgivings always ready on the tips of tongues

Do you know I used to think you were a superhero?
It seems like a lifetime ago that I thought you a statue of perfection
because your exterior was hard as stone

Your one true weakness was your tongue
perhaps when they doused you in the River of Styx as a child
they should've made you drink it too

(I will still say that a heel being a weakness is a thousand times better)
Was mine in loving you regardless?

I loved you with that brokenness you seemed to be filled to the brim with
I loved you despite the mumblings under your breath
Maybe you didn't think this
but I thought that to you I could never measure up
A third of my life till now has been spent waiting to see your eyes light when they fell on me
and biting my lip when they weren't bright as stars

and I thought that way
until I realized that I did wrong too

So

I love you
especially in this moment when I hear that when my absence hit
your brokenness spilled out in tears down your face

Although you weren't perfect all the time
the smell of Newports and cologne still tell me
you were there