Bedeviled

I read a book on spiritual discipline
sitting in the cigar store
but I didn’t inhale.

Going home the pleasing aroma
was a whiff of tomorrow’s day-old
sacrificial stench. I showered,

practiced a song about
relationships that need to end,
proud of hitting the right strings,

realizing I’d need to practice scales
to pull this off. I listened
as the smell started sweating back

through my pores. I slept,
and my headache and
the taste of my own throat

was better in the morning.
Three minutes before the alarm
I woke: I’d dreamed God was telling me

you’ve got to fight the devil

I woke up again to Amy Grant
singing mint-sugar cliches.

Inspired by a dverse prompt on idiom.

Written back in 2013, set private for some reason; figured I’d move it to the top.