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Smoke doesn’t kill, it chokes.


You know you have become dangerous

When you dip the warm blankets in kerosene and write poetry with a lit cigarette, sitting in a closed room, with no way to escape..there are clouds of smoke forming around and you have transported yourself to another world, somewhere you don’t have to worry, somewhere you walk in the country lanes, drinking water from hillside waterfalls. Somewhere you’re not judged constantly, somewhere you can be yourself.

You fail to see the smoke darkening and once it has filled every other nook, it starts entering your lungs, gradually so that you don't suspect anything. It chokes you, bit by bit, smoldering your throat, grilling your ribs until you cannot hold it any longer.

You lose yourself in your imagination and fail to see the smoke darkening

It forces you out of the serene landscape, dragging you back to reality.

Your eyes wide open, your mouth panting for breath, your skin burning, you look at the paper in your hand, with its scribbled lines, the ones you wrote while still in your fairyland.

The pen in your hand falls to the floor with no noise, to your surprise…you find that every inch is covered with ashes...your mind jolts, you realise that you have finished your entire stock.

Your clothes have now caught fire, yet you stay, glued. Your eyes taking in every piece of paper with its own scribbled lines, burning, smoldering, floating. One comes close and when you touch it, it falls to the floor, as elegant as a swan.


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Book: Shattered Sighs