My father and uncle started smoking as
teenagers kids really my uncle the baby
brother following my father everywhere
getting caught because they smoked on
the front porch and my grandma found all
the butts left in the dirt dumb kids
blew their own cover I hate the smell of
cigarettes in grade school the slide
shows flashed cancer black tar nicotine
tick I ran home and begged my father to
stop but over 15 years of smoking is a
long smouldering fire sizzling embers
eating deep cementing the pack into his
pocket my father is one of many smokers
in this family I’m not quite sure what
the difference is between a smoker and a
person who smokes we have plenty of
those too I think it has something to do
with how much ash is in the tray I do
not smoke as an adult because I inhaled
enough as a child I am careful enough to
consider addiction a family pattern two
Christmases ago my uncle came to visit
he looked older than my father like over
15 years the smoking had given him extra
years along with the harder drugs and
trips to rehab when I took out the trash
it reeks of their childhood I think they
felt closest smoking on the porch
together I hate the smell of cigarettes
but smoke coiling up to the Stars is
also this brotherly love my
grandmother’s soft skin my aunts laughs
fire pit family party with a side of
ashtray there are no health class
slideshows in college but my father is
probably getting another divorce so he
is probably buying another pack my uncle
doesn’t smoke anymore but that’s because
he’s dead I didn’t go to the funeral
like I didn’t smoke the night I found
out not for lack of wanting he’d been
dead for a week when they found him I
mean and now every pack is a gateway to
an empty pill bottle to another
addiction to his body to wherever the
smoke goes …
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