The Smoke Room

We called it the smoke room,
But we never did smoke.
Instead, we pinned pictures of ourselves to the wall with cheap thumbtacks
that hurt our fingertips.
And beside them,
we stuck post-it notes declaring everything from our hopes and dreams, to our deepest fears.
And though it was small and dusty,
we would emerge from it feeling cleaner than before.
At any given time, either of us could be found in it.
Lying with our backs kissing the floor,
Making wishes upon the stars in our makeshift sky,
And seeking redemption for secrets that we didn't trust the other to keep.
There were dirty hand prints on the wall, that we traced over with sharpie markers,
And old crumpled bank receipts we cried over, because they revealed us to be irresponsible.
In the smoke room
It was okay that we spent the rent money on take-out,
And saying "I don't know" was a legitimate answer.
It was okay to call out from work just because we didn't feel like going.
In the smoke room,
Being a mess,
made us that more beautiful.