Secondhand Reformed
Artist unknown
Secondhand Reformed
|
| Artist unknown |
Your cigarette blooms
like a burnt apology.
Your puff
reminds me of the stench
I used to be.
Once, I called that smoke home—
now it wears the breath
of an ex-lover's lie,
curling toward me,
asking for one last kiss
I'll never give.
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This Quadrille (44 word poem) shared with those pastry puffs over at DVerse Poets Pub.
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Never smoked, and now I'm happy that so many other have stopped smoking too.
ReplyDeleteChris, it feels like you have a trauma association with cigarette smoke. Everybody in my family smoked like chimneys and I followed them from age ~17 to ~35. It's a dirty habit that kills you slowly.
ReplyDeletePowerful poem in just 44 words. My favorite part:
"it wears the breath
of an ex-lover's lie,
curling toward me,"
Ppwerful stayement
ReplyDelete"it wears the breath
of an ex-lover's lie,
curling toward me,"
Much lovr
I never smoked. Pretended once, I think I was 8, when a friend stole a cigarette from her brother. I wouldn't even try to kiss a smoker! My brother and his house smelled terrible, and the walls were coated in a brown film. He started at age 15, and isn't with us anymore.
ReplyDeleteVery very occasionally I will become nostalgic at the brief sniff of cigarette smoke but usually I hate it. Nice write Chris 👏
ReplyDeleteIntense!
ReplyDeleteBest to leave the cancer sticks be. I tried them as a teenager but didn't get the allure of them. True
ReplyDeleteOh yes! I remember that addiction very well. And I know what it is to be where you are now, too, I'm glad to say for both our sakes. I got free in 1987, as a birthday present to myself, but only after having learnt that it was indeed an addiction, and like an alcoholic 'one is too many and 100 not enough.' I can't ever 'take it or leave it' ('one last kiss' indeed – *scoffs*). It took the Smokenders course (brilliant, put together by behavioural psychologists) to help me break away. You've described it all so well!
ReplyDeleteI've never smoked, and never wanted to, but I remember when the smoke was everywhere, houses, restaurants, planes.
ReplyDeleteChris, I like how you turn secondhand smoke into an old love whose pull shows how fully you have left that life behind.
ReplyDeleteMuch love,
David
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