Author’s note:
The fire/smoke description in this piece is purely metaphorical. Smoking is harmful to health, and harmful to second-hand smokers too. This imagery was used to evoke the idea of how some people leave a warmth in your life that feels so safe and yet so destructive. With that being said, let the flames begin.
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They left something burning in your heart, so now you’re only drawn to smokers. Like you’re afraid your fire might go out, so you keep close to people with a lighter in their pockets. They look ethereal behind a puff of smoke, you see clouds, you know heaven looks nothing like this, but God knows you try.
You need to learn how to build a fire of your own, because we both know every cigarette burns till it’s none. You know you can let go of a fire you didn’t start, but you don’t know how long the smoke will linger, long after the fire has gone out.
Nobody likes to admit that everyone they’ve loved before will forever sit like an old revered painting in the museum of their heart. You move so far away from them to avoid any pull from their proximity, but they are like a magnet that knows no distance. They don’t need passports or visa stamps; they just follow you across borders like hidden drugs.
That’s the privilege and tragedy of human love.
You wish them well, that their plane lands safely in Cologne tonight, that the water they drink cools the burn in their lungs. And next time you fall for another one like him, you’ll know: fire is only beautiful from a distance.
So fly away, dear, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of their cigarette.