A Life Up In Smoke

I wonder how he's doing: if he's in the final throes? I haven't seen him lately and there is no way to know. I've heard he has a cancer in his lungs and in his brain. I sit here and I pray that he's not in a lot of pain. I used to plead quite often, when we were both still friends, To end the smoking habit, before it ended him. He would sneer and look at me like I was in disgrace, Then laugh and blow a cloud of smoke directly toward my face. Years went by and love evolved, as love will often do, Then came the day I didn't care, if he smoked till he was blue. The coughing every morning, deep hoarseness in his throat, The clearing of his windpipe nearly every time he spoke. His clothes and hair all reeking with nicotine and tar. Far worse still, than even this, when trapped within his car. There came a day I finally left because in my despair; I felt I had to find a place where I could breathe the air. I know it sounds that I have chose to keep myself immune: Exempt from having empathy for one who’ll die so soon. But I refuse to feel the pain of losing him again, To the real love of his lessened life: his pale and slender friend. And now there's little left to say, as he fights his final fight. I’ll never say, “I told him so” . . I'm just sorry I was right!