I wake up.

I go to my window.

The Sun is out.

But not For Long.

The Smog is Creeping in.

That ****** toxic cloud.

Filled with poison. Filled with Sadness. Filled with Pain. Filled with Destruction. Filled with Anger. Filled with Loss.

Full of Fear. Full of Hurt. Full of Death. Full of Worry. Full of Hate. Full of Darkness.

The Wonders of the World are gone and have been replaced by the trillion terrors.

The Sun is out, But the Smog is rolling in.

So I walk. I walk.

I am Outside Now and I see That ****** Cloud slithering in front of that beautiful sun.

And I breathe. I inhale the ugliness. The Branches of my Lungs begin to wither as that cloud invades my body. I breathe and I breathe, never exhaling. My eyes begin to tear. My body becomes weak.

But I keep breathing. I breathe for my brothers, for my sisters, for my fathers, for my mothers, I Breathe.

I breathe for my sons and for my daughters. I breathe for all. I breathe in the disgust so they don’t have to. So they NEVER have to.

I choke.

And as my body becomes a shell and my soul decides to depart. My Brothers, My Sisters, My Fathers, My Mothers, My Sons, My daughters, they breathe in to me.

They give me purity and strength through air that has never tasted so sweet.

They bring me back and they carry me inside where I lie down next to my wife, next to my husband.

And I sleep.

With a Smile on My Face.

For all the months we spent together, you only kissed me once. You tasted like spearmint gum, and like the burst of laughter you held back between our lips, and it was a "to be continued" kind of kiss. Every time after that we were picking up where we left off—extensions of that first kiss in March, extra pages to extra chapters to extra volumes in the story of you and me. You were a library book, one I hadn't read before. And in the back of my mind I knew you wouldn't be mine forever. But you were new and you were exciting and I couldn't wait for the next time I could open you up and be reminded how much I loved the taste of spearmint.

But sooner or later it was going to have to end. I knew this, I knew it, I really did; I just told myself if I didn't think about it it wouldn't happen. It did happen though. Sure enough, the due date to my library book came around—way too fast. I was almost sure that I had you for much longer, and for that reason I didn't even get to read the ending of the story. But I had to return all of the kisses and the laughter and the gum…as well as giving up all of the ones I hadn't gotten to yet, because I had had no idea when the words "the end" were going to be coming up.

And so the next time you kissed me, our second official kiss, I hadn't expected so much of a plot twist. I had finally renewed my library book, but my favorite character died, and the villain turned himself in, and the hero and the girl he loved were falling apart. You had stopped chewing spearmint gum, and the laughter was gone—replaced with the bitter taste of self-doubt and uncertainty. I pulled away faster than I expected, suddenly nervous and not sure why. I closed the book and handed it back to you, with the ending I had wished so desperately to be able to read, but not the one I had expected at all.