Particles drifting
Nestled inside lung branches
Each breath digs deeper
Unseen crystals cling
Microscopic volcanoes
Overtake the light
Nature’s cruel design
Oxygen choked by silence
Unwilling exile
Light no longer moves
Through the smoke that thickens fast
Roots rise in the dust
Air, a hidden war
Minerals without mercy
Invasive and cold
Cough becomes a bell
Ringing down deserted halls
Of abandoned lungs
Scorched from the inside out
Cell by cell, the fire spreads
Over time’s quiet
Pulmonary ash
Internal avalanches
Crashing into unseen cliffs
Slow suffocation
In a breath that once meant life
Lost in the stillness
Inside, silence falls
Calcium ghosts taking hold
Over broken air
Violent and still
Yet ominous, it lingers on
Like snow in the chest
Coarse grains carve the dark
Afterthought of ancient flame
Never washed away
Over time, it sleeps
Coiled like smoke in the chimney lungs
Only dust remains
Numb to healing hands
Iron cannot clear the soot
Over and over
Something permanent
It is written in every breath
Stone lungs, soft no more