"It's a metaphor" she says, the cigarette between her teeth.
But is it a metaphor when at night her room is silent as she reaches for a lighter?
Smoke surrounding her, like a blanket of evil.
She is dying, ever so slowly, and death is just waiting around the corner for its chance to pounce and consume.
It is crawling on its hands and knees, inching closer.
She doesn't even care, or at least that's what she says when the doctor warns her.
Her breath smells like cancer, the bald truth, and her words taste like venom.
Maybe she does care, but why should she try?
Why does she do it?
What pushes her to the edge?
I look down at her arms, her long sleeves cover them to where I can barely see.
But yes, I can see.
Scars up and down like signs of her weakness, her struggle.
Alone and lost in herself, she lays in her bed with her music so loud that it drowns out everything.
The voices in her head say "you are not worth it" but yet she still survives.
She thinks about it, you know what I mean.
She tells me it is nothing, that her every breath isn't special; but I wrap her in my arms like the darkness of the night hugs the shining stars.
I love her.
But love is just a metaphor.
