Not everyone comes face to face with their past, forced to admit fault and drown in guilt until eventually they emerged battered and breathless, stumbling into the future scarred, but healed. Not everyone is that lucky.

More and more often she found herself lost in a dizzying maze of her memories, groping and stumbling through laughs and tears, desperate to latch on to something, anything, that would convince her that things were still the same, that nothing was lost. She was too tired for change.

She sits there by him day and night
She sits there always in his sight
She watches him asleep in bed
She watches till her eyes are red
Counting down to the final goodnight.

I see you standing there, cigarette in hand;

You’re smiling.

Why does it take the click of a lighter to share a laugh with a friend?

I try to take vicarious pleasure as you take a puff;

I do not understand.

Where is the joy in knowing you are turning your life into ash?

Rings of white escape your mouth;

You cough.

Can you really not live without killing yourself a little every day?

You cannot live without your cigarette;

Look beyond the smoke.

What about us, the people who can’t live without you?

I take the cigarette and stub it;

You, are looking at me.

I dare you not to take another one.

I dare you to be happy without those three inches of rolled up tobacco.

I dare you to think of those who think about you.

I dare you not to burn away your life, cigarette by cigarette, puff by puff.

I dare you to stop smoking.

I dare you, to live.

Palindrome

Escape.
She burst forth and away from the shackles that dared chain her.
Panic.
Hair lashing against her face, wild as an untamed, unkept garden.
Fever.
Her eyes, drops of smouldering amber, melting into madness.
Desperation.
Clinging to every passing soul; begging, grovelling, crying; unseen, unheard
Crisis.
Help!
Desperation.
Child pressed against her bosom, as if to somehow take his agony unto her own.
Fever.
Raging through her babe's limbs as does fire in the heart of Ate.
Panic.
The gleaming peace of silver clutched in her fist, driven into the tiny, flickering heart.
Escape.
Death; relief; release.