the day is almost here

in honor of my 26th birthday, i have decided to quit smoking.

i no longer have the mythical/aesthetic attachment to smoking i felt a few years ago, and of course, a few years ago, i was not nearly the person i am now.

so, today is the last day. i'm going out the way i went in, smoking parliament lights; and i'm relieved to feel comfortable making this choice.

to commemorate the occasion, my old poem about the romantic attachment to smoking:

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE ASKED ME TO QUIT SMOKING

Part One

Because in every picture of Mark Rothko, he is
smoking--he is smoking with a daughter
on his knee, he is smoking looking nine feet high
at a mural panel, he is smoking over the studio sink
in the moments before he dies. You know of him
only what you have seen in my home--the stack
of books which reaches my knees in the corner
near the bed, my knee where for the last six weeks blood
has been settling into a bruise. I tell you I know
he painted something its color once; I even show
you: Untitled, 1960.

Part Two

Because when I was a child, spiraling around the backyard
singing that song of the Red Death my father taught me, ashes,
ashes, we all fall down, he smoked on the back porch steps,
waving his fingers through the curls of Basic Ultra Light
smoke, scolding me to keep my hands out of the flat amber
ash tray; and even now, I can’t help but dip my fingers into
it, tracing small rectangles on the insides of my wrists, forearms,
thinking of the last series of Rothkos--the dark mouth exhaling
into a breath of gray.

Part Three

Because it was my perfect New York moment--standing
outside of the old studio at 222 Bowery Street, smoking
a scarlet papered cigarette from the golden box of Fantasia
Naturals, wrists and fingers curling around the iron gates
at the entrance. I want to call you and tell you that the
gates must be ancient, but have never rusted--they’ve ashed.

Part Four

Because I didn’t remember Abuelito smoking Camel filters
until my father showed me the picture. In it, I am
a child, I am so small that I am a stub of a child looking up
at him, his elbow resting on the kitchen sink, wrist bent
above the ashtray. I must have loved the red of its burn.
And even now, I look up, the picture hanging
at the ceiling, my father saying, “He used to be a chimney”,
thinking that if I exhale now, he will scatter.