My friend told me

When he was little

He wanted nothing more

Than to be a cigarette

When he grew up.

When I asked him why,

He told me

It was because his mother

Loved nothing more

Than cigarettes,

That she was always

Too busy for him

But never too busy

For her next drag.

When she was upset

She would turn to her cigarettes,

Tipping the ashes into

Her porcelain ashtray.

She never played with him

She only smoked.

And when her cancer

Took her away

And he went to live with his dad

I asked him again:

What do you want to be

When you grow up?

This time,

His answer was the bottles.

The bottles his dad

Always seemed to have

In his calloused hands.

His dad held a steady job

For a few years

Until he showed up to work

Hungover.

He lost his job that day

And became violent.

My friend showed up to school

The next day

Covered in bruises,

His eye swollen shut.

He wanted his father’s love

His attention

Even after then

When he was always drunk

And beating the shit out of him.

Even after all these years

With his father

Sharing the same fate as his mother,

He still wants to be

Those cigarettes

And that nasty ass Rum.

Everything his parents

Ever loved.