On July 7th you purged yourself in clean air,
promised me a new tomorrow,
because tomorrow, you’ll save yourself,

That night I prayed in the name amen.
I used to paint you godly.
or whatever a young girl’s metaphor for a dad was,
I used to paint you righteous,
but nicotine has a way of craving for sin,
has a way of creating angels out of fathers,

Your job was to put food on the table,
but poverty and long nights at work called for bad habits,
called for famines in your lungs, starving for the seductive taste of fire,
for the burnt barbecued pieces.

On July 8, I saw you light your pack like candles,
like you were lost without the light she was burning,
and she was burning you,
burning your body up into flames, slowly, symphonically,
wrapping you around her arms, holding you,
romantically,
because she wants to grow old with you,
wants to steal you away from your lover,
wants to dance with you under street lights that shine like multi colored malignancies,
she doesn’t let you leave her, promises you forever,
you cannot live without her,
you’ll die together, 
Nicotine wants to show you Hell,
she has a way of making making hell feel a lot like Heaven,

If you could, you tell me, you would crucify yourself to a cross,
bleed out all your sickled sinful yesterdays,
let your body become a church again, holy,
reincarnate into a man worthy of forgiveness.

Daddy, I forgive you.

I do not know what it is like to worship your own killer,
do not know what what is like to have a gun cocked into your mouth,
Daddy,
she is not your savior,
the gun is in your own hands,
stop pulling the trigger.