while the boys around me drank I sat
and smoked cigarettes and leaned and smoked cigarettes
and drank exactly one two-dollar PBR,
bare stomach / short shorts /
mini dress / eating taquitos
from two different gas stations before walking the mile home alone
while the boys around me
drank and I smoked cigarettes,
my hair smelled like cigarettes, my bra smelled like cigarettes,
putting on boots in my dorm lobby
to go smoke cigarettes
a freshman told me that her dad had died of lung cancer and I said
I’m so sorry
as I left to smoke cigarettes, the boys told me
they’d never date a girl who smoked cigarettes /
the woman I had a crush on
smoked cigarettes / the boys put tongues
down my ashen throat
after I smoked cigarettes / the boys smoked spliffs
and tasted like a skunk’s asshole
while I smoked cigarettes
the boys asked me for a drag, then a cigarette / offered me a dollar
for a cigarette
the boys asked me
for a light and told me
that I was pretty for a girl
with no class
while I smoked cigarettes
and wished
them dead
Header photograph © Icy Blu Daniel.
Emily Blair is a queer Appalachian poet and community college professor currently living in North Carolina. Her most recent publications and more information about her can be found on her website, emilyblairpoet.com.