I see the alliances you form,
how they follow you home,
sit in the corner of your rented room,
smoke curling above last night’s dishes—
touching you, touching your pets
touching your kids.
I see what it costs your flesh.
I spat on the social contract once
struck the match myself.
A familiar smell of aluminium and ash
settling like ****
in a throat that should have known better.
I hear the fragility
echo from two states away
in the choreography of your outrage—
what trends, what fades,
what gets mildly condemned.
You speak of resistance.
You speak of solidarity.
The only resistance I’ve seen
has been to progress—
progress that moved without you,
left you
at the back of the line
while we all whistle casually
on a frenzied ferry to a fiery end—
armband pinches, the furnace groans,
the smoke creeps in your throat
and everyone pretends it’s a breeze.
axes. ash. asterisk.
again. again. again.
the smoke in your lungs now
isn't cigarettes.
Lumumba is losing a country
the West is carving now.
Allende's ballot is burning.
The bombs are falling.
Trotsky's theories are correct
and the ice ax is mid-swing.
The Left always bleeds
so The Right can be
seen as right.
Left, out. Right, in.
Now, you feel
what it means—
to be left out.
Now you see it was never—
just elections,
just politics,
just words—
words matter.
Matter, however, takes up space.
Being “left” was never about
what you chose.
It was always about
who you are.
Feb 19
Feb 19, 2026 at 5:30 PM UTC
I see the alliances you form,
how they follow you home,
sit in the corner of your rented room,
smoke curling above last night’s dishes—
touching you, touching your pets
touching your kids.
I see what it costs your flesh.
I spat on the social contract once
struck the match myself.
A familiar smell of aluminium and ash
settling like ****
in a throat that should have known better.
I hear the fragility
echo from two states away
in the choreography of your outrage—
what trends, what fades,
what gets mildly condemned.
You speak of resistance.
You speak of solidarity.
The only resistance I’ve seen
has been to progress—
progress that moved without you,
left you
at the back of the line
while we all whistle casually
on a frenzied ferry to a fiery end—
armband pinches, the furnace groans,
the smoke creeps in your throat
and everyone pretends it’s a breeze.
axes. ash. asterisk.
again. again. again.
the smoke in your lungs now
isn't cigarettes.
Lumumba is losing a country
the West is carving now.
Allende's ballot is burning.
The bombs are falling.
Trotsky's theories are correct
and the ice ax is mid-swing.
The Left always bleeds
so The Right can be
seen as right.
Left, out. Right, in.
Now, you feel
what it means—
to be left out.
Now you see it was never—
just elections,
just politics,
just words—
words matter.
Matter, however, takes up space.
Being “left” was never about
what you chose.
It was always about
who you are.
The smoke in the first stanza and the smoke in the lungs before the historical stanza and the ash in the title are all the same smoke. That's the poem working as a whole organism rather than a sequence of observations.
