Like a cloud of magic
Lives can be changed in an instant.

Once the bottle is grasped
Your past can disappear in seconds.

Ones head seems to buzz
Reality masked by a shield of smoke.

A father, lifting his child
Smiles and laughs, holding him close.

His first day of school
New and different, a milestone in life.

The child giggles then winces,
Smelling the cloud of poison on his fathers breath.

His mother cries,
Wondering who it was she knew as her husband

Did he like me sober?
Or only when he had his walls of smoke protecting him.

Time will pass,
Years turn to months turn to minutes turn to seconds

The last fluctuation on the line
The red movements go still
Just like that he’s gone.

A boy walks down the path to his diploma.

His mother waves in the distance, proud, yet alone.

The boy giggles, for the first time in a while, he is happy.

A familiar smell wafts into the room.
A young man fidgets with his emptying pack of cigarettes.

The boy stops dead in his tracks.
He winces.