Cigarette - Austin P. McKenzie

I am nineteen and I’m on my mom’s roof

It’s Arizona how I’m cold and aloof

It’s a blue morning, the music, the moon

You’ll never love or be loved like I love you

I’ve yet to hear of jazz or soulful remedies

Just the distant dreams of sad melodies

Lonely tune, a melancholy lullaby

My sleepy sister sings a dreadful goodbye

I want to know what I’ve been keeping inside

I want to feel the music between my thighs

You know there’s someone there when they’re chasin' you

You know you’re someone but can’t quite find out who

Lord on high

Where am I going?

Praying hard

See him showing

Who I’ll be

I am twenty and I’m packing my things

I live in Chicago and it lives in me

I’m in love with all its music and its snow

I’m also in love with a girl and her poems

I hate to leave but I am chasing success

I caught a red-eye out to LAX

I kiss my love goodbye and he kisses back

My film-noir slowly fades to black

Lord on high

Where am I going?

Praying hard

See him showing

Who I’ll be

The most famous man in the world

One photo, eyes like pearls

Drakkar, James Bond, white skin

Ray-ban, bleach-blond, drug binge

And he’s driving this Jeep not fast enough speed

Does his mind race like mine?

Snapped the photo in time

I am twenty-one and having some fun

Sitting in my Jeep in California

I smoke a cigarette

I’ve never had one

I suspect it’s the first but not last one

A bombshell blond girl sits on her balcony

A trumpet player with no teeth next to me

A tatted woman with a beehive by the trees

We all smoke cigarettes till the next reprise

Cigarette

Where am I going?

Watch the smoke

See it showing

Cigarette

Somethings growing

There’s a feel

But there’s no knowing

Who I’ll be

Cigarette

Cigarette

Cigarette

Cigarette