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Mark Wanless Feb 11
cigarette smoke in
my lungs bitter and burning
why do i want more
Andreas Peter Sep 2023
Breath comes
Slow
and
Harsh
Through a filter of
Tar and
age
Comes faster, unbidden unbound un
invited
I stood, days of old and told myself
I
was. done.
Breathing, tar.
I guess
Tar, still holds an ember
In, my, chest.
Cigarettes to provide company at unrest
AE Sep 2023
I've talked to all the ghosts in this room
They speak of memories and grievances
And we revel in how quickly this fog has turned into smoke
It bites at my lungs
And I sit and wait, my eyes on my hands
My ears on the clock
At some point, each passing second
Parallels my heartbeat
There is someone across from me
Saying it is time to let go
But what would be left of me
If this grief vanished, too
At some point, it became all I am

Until you
somehow stumbled into this room
untethering the past from all that I knew
Ila Jul 2023
You know, I started smoking because of you.

The availability of the cigarettes you had on hand when I saw you
To be fair, when I was with you, you’d try your best to not smoke as I’d get dizzy
But somehow I always gave in
I asked for one while knowing this

You’re just an analogy to cigarettes
I know how bad you are for me
Yet when I see you I can’t but help to dive in again
Do it over and over again because as good as it feels it is so unhealthy for me

I do it over and over again and I know it’s unhealthy but it just feels so good

It’s toxic through and through
The smoke etched on my lungs
And I drown in you

Now every time I’m offered a cigarette I can’t help but think of you
I smoke them knowing they’re bad for me
But somehow it gives me a connection to you
Somehow smoking one makes me miss you
It makes me feel you again

And I hate it
Oh how I hate it
I know how bad it is for me — how toxic it is
But somehow I can’t stop

You’re just as bad for me as the cigarettes you once looked at me shocked by me asking for some

Smoke fills my lungs and you fill my heart

But as you keep coming back
As I will keep getting cigarette after cigarette
This feeling of self destruction is unfortunately never ending

And truly, how does one find a conclusion to something everlasting?

This pattern is circular. I stop and when I see you it starts again. I probably won’t ever cut you off. This pattern of self destruction will consume me, just as cigarettes take their victim

(12/24/22; 12:45 am)
Warning: Cigarette smoking is bad for your health
I S A A C Jul 2023
do you hear that?
no
do you fear that ?
no
understand its near when the heat bubbles my brain
understand the tears when they flood more than rain
i can’t taste anything but raging waves
washing my face, washing our pain
cleanse, repent, until i second guess
all the compression of my fate
depression in my rays
internal divide, leave the strain in the drain
self sacrifice, smoke the demons away
Austin Sessoms Sep 2012
you are the lit tip
of one cigarette pressed
against another
you are the reason
I burn
Austin Sessoms Apr 2012
the first free minutes of the day find me
scrambling for the lighter that will ensure my
good standing with a
young and dumb, restless addict
of the two-years-older-than-me generation

her cigarette hangs limp from her lips
waiting for the fire that I promised her
I had to offer
eyebrows arching
fingers followed by toes tapping
in an anxious less-than-patience

so I fumble through the pockets of my jacket
tapping fingers into gum packets
doing what I can to keep from laughing
at the whole
****
thing

until at last I find the lighter
for the babe who's smoking Marlboros
and says she doesn't care who knows
that she smokes cigarettes
Austin Sessoms May 2012
here's to a package of
Marlboro Reds
in the hands of
someone other than
the Marlboro Man
standing in
for those slack-jawed outlaws
my heroes now lack jaws
tongues
lungs

I swear it's been too long
since I inhaled manhood
The Great Darrell Winfield
rolled
packed
and filtered
into the only thing I know
that makes a man a man
the essence of
cowboy boots and farmer's tan
in every drag

see, I inhale my heroes
all the dusty red-necked
cowboys
Darrell Winfield
and my dad
men whose lives
went up in smoke
to coat my throat
in my own self-righteousness
I'm frightened this
is all that I'll have left
of him
lung cancer
and the lingering stench
of cigarettes

he always smelled
of cigarettes

he'd pull me into these
firm embraces
he held so long
that he'd suffocate me
in tacky business
and cigarette smoke
masked only
faintly
by a poor man's
cologne
still I breathed him in
until I'd start to choke
it was too much man to handle

my grandpa told me
“smoking doesn't send you
straight to Hell,
but it sure does make you smell
like you've already been there”

he was
a grown man
cursing
crying
lying
dying by himself
trying to drown out the inferno
with a case of beer
but sobriety finds you sometime
and I'd rather suffocate in cigarettes
than lose him altogether

and even if he smells like Hell
at least that means he made it back
Anais Vionet Jun 2023
Canada is afire and I’m confused, shouldn’t the snow put that out?

The Boston sky is an interesting shade of mustard yellow,
and there’s a pale orange haze where the sun should be.

Lisa, drowsily asleep-walked into the kitchen for her morning coffee.
“So this is Mars,” I observed, “Elon Musk will be so jealous.”
“Good,” Lisa said, “I was afraid it was nuclear winter.”
“There’ll be no breathing today.” I updogged.

We could almost hear the slow, delicate pitter-patter fall of micro-ash.

“There’s aaaa bright golden haze over Boston..” Lisa began to sing softly.
Lisa knows every Broadway score and can easily interpolate a song into every conversation.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Interpolate: inserting something, like music into a conversation,
caity May 2023
But would you burn for me
like i burned for you
or could you only smoke
so everyone thought we had wildfires
but it was only me being razed to the ground
while you stand there

ready to smoke for another
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