we drink tea and we smoke and we ask: do the gods love us?

we tell each other, laughing, that we’re already going to hell and smoke curls between our fingers and the cold air is sharp and i scrape the taste of pomegranate from the backs of my teeth.

and we watch the ashes float up, up, up. the stars are bright tonight so we search for the constellation of hercules because, if anything, his story tells us that maybe we should not covet the love of gods.

you tell me about the time that you drank and drank until the trees began to reach out to you with mossy fingers that bled black sap; tell me about the pipe music you heard cutting through the night, that it sank itself into your flesh and since then your very bones have been restless in your body.

you say that i am lucky: i’m beautiful, and the gods love beauty. i reply, ticking them off on my fingers: myrrha, medusa, daphne, io, scylla, semele. if the gods love me for my beauty i am doomed.

and we drink more tea and smoke some more and each inhale is deeper than the last and our lungs are alight and we silently hope we will find absolution in the last drag.