i found salvation in the molten crown at the end of a cigarette.
salvation walked barefoot on its pilgrimage to me through twenty-one years of scars— it walked through my grandmother’s lungs, scorching them black, and through my mother’s cancerous and toxic trachea.
it walked through a thousand anti-tobacco ads, nondisclosure agreements, hospital wards, my father’s own clenched fists, and soft yellow stains on discarded funereal vestments.
it found me after all that, waiting patiently for a way to **** myself slowly, something that mixed well with alcohol, and would leave me bitterly satisfied with the semblance of poetic justice.