Finding Myself

My fingers are cold on this night.
All I want is to smoke indoors.
Lazy and naked,
like the Parisian girl I always
knew myself to be.
Turning my bath water on and off,
and searching for Aphrodite in my big toe.

Outside, a pretentious wind pushes the trees
back and forth,
causing something to circle inside me.
An uncomfortable, broken wish.
A hopeless longing that there won't be another
decision or another heartbreak
to sit through.

The caloused moon cuts at my knees
in those moments when the world seems as unreal
as a movie.
I exit the theatre,
and watch the sparks fly off the tip
of my cigarette like a homemade roman candle.

We all love to lose ourselves.
Ourselves burden us.
They poke at us, saying,
"Find me, find me, find me."

How long will it take me to
realize that the chase is everything?
To settle that inside.
To believe that this searching distraction
is all we're really looking for.
The constant disorienting knowledge
that we've never found ourselves,
but we're always looking,
saying, "Will you help?
I think I left it here at this table,
outside the cafe,
when I smoked that exploding cigarette."