I watch her puff
her cigarettes
while she secretly
inhales the fire
as it eases the thunder
underneath her tongue.

She fills her pockets
as deep as her mind
finds the soil to dig,
and closes her eyes
soothingly at the idea
that the more she hoards,
the more security life
will whisper into her
blood-clogged ears.

She finds her world
deluging with treasure,
an empty warehouse that sleeps
dormant within the drifting
caskets across her shores.

I watched her stand bare
before the storm,
but it was not until
she found herself drowning
that she realized that
what she needed to live
were not the physical things
that dragged her under
in the end.

S.A. Quinox