a 21st century lover

gone like cigarette smoke

gone like cigarette smoke - April 22, 2024

The fire died down. The anger subsided. The demons went to sleep. And among the charred and burnt fields that stretch around the world, I am the only one standing. I let out a deep sigh but something is wrong with me. My throat feels like it's on fire. Every exhale is a black smoke that chokes me. I cough with this tar dying to escape. My fingertips are dried and cracking. My face is covered in soot. I truly was alone in that moment. It felt as if anything I touched burnt to a crisp. The scattered photos of us on the floor mock me. When I go to grab one, it lights ablaze and crumbles into smoke. For miles in all directions, there was not a single life to be seen. Not a green blade of grass to survive. And the sky was choked from all of its light. A dark gray smog smothers what should have been the night sky. No moons or stars peer through this curtain of smoke.

I fall to my knees and feel the Earth cry at how badly I had burnt her. Her tears ran dry as all of the water went away with the rage I fueled. She only shakes and cracks just as I had. Mountains have fallen. What used to be rivers and lakes are nothing but craters. I look at the other photos I had left of you. No matter what I do or what method to be able to hold the memories of us, they all burn away. They light up like a cigarette and fly into ashes that become a part of the smoky sky. Until all of them become smoke, I cling to them so desperately. My tears evaporate before they hit the quaking ground. My cries become the sounds of thunder. I had you no more. I had nothing of you left to savor. Not a single thing to remind me of you except what I felt for you in my heart. The smoke does not stop as it keeps flowing from my mouth.

The stinging pain becomes bearable compared to the pain of realizing I destroyed everything. No chance of rebuilding. Not a slim possibility of finding peace. I kneel in hope of a never-coming repentance. I mutter my apologies. I blame myself for it all. I beat my chest and head at the choices I made. I claw at my heart and watch it bleed out of me. Once it becomes all for naught and useless, I close my eyes and fade away. Feel my body crack and burn. My veins flowed like a raging magma river, igniting my cells to just turn into smoke. Then, hopefully, the world could start anew when I am gone. Gone with the smoke like a cigarette smoke.