This is how I imagined it might have gone, if there had been an ending

You suck on the end

of your cigarette
its red eye
winking at me
in the failing light

Look, darlin'

you say

Look

With studied insouciance

A pause

Another deep drag
You take in a breastful
of white, whispering smoke
and blow it out
in precise curls
(A little cough
threatens to ruin
the effect,
though)

It's not you
or more specifically
it is you
You're not the you for me
and that's the problem

There's nothing wrong with you
per se
It's just there's nothing right
not right for me
at any rate
You're too good
and that means
you're not good enough

You were a transgression
I'll give you that
But you
just weren't
transgressive enough

Don't get me wrong, love
Having you wasn't bad
Don't look like that
It's just
you just didn't
cut the mustard
That's all

Cigarette burning down
you look at me
really look at me for the first time
and for a tiny fraction of a fraction
of a second
I think you're sorry
and then it's gone
like the winking red eye
winking out

I want to hate you
I wish I were angry
or even surprised
but
here we are
ending it
over a cigarette butt
(you've sucked one dry
already
in silence, slouching
and shifting from foot
to foot, scratching
your three-day stubble)
outside the tube station
and I just
don't

No hard feelings, darlin'
you mutter
with a squeeze of my shoulder

and you suck on your cigarette
one last time
in the failing light
before you go