Smoke

I went out for a walk today, and was taken aback by the strong smell of cigarette smoke in the air. It reminded me of all the sufferers of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease I had encountered during my short time as an intern at a Pulmonolgy Unit. Smoking is one of the many things about this life that I have a hard time wrapping my head around, but then again, we all have our slow poisons, and maybe this isn’t any different! We can always try to counsel and be supportive though. While consuming our own poisons we forget how much it hurts to watch the ones we love drowning in theirs! We could be hurting other people. The poem below is my attempt, feeble at best, to try to make sense of it all.

I feel it spreading

within me,

a cloud of thick

black smoke;

what a privilege!

to be sitting

on the rooftop,

away from the eyes

that judge,

and yet be exposed

like a nerve!

the shame

that self-destruction

is supposed to

bring is masked

by the agony

of one organ

dying a painful

death, and its misery

spreading unlike

a wildfire, slowly,

a little too slowly,

consuming everything

in its resolve

to not be

the only thing that dies-

I light another cigarette.

©Aaysid