#Prompt31 Cigarette

We drove happily

With joyful kids screaming behind.

“Bad smell is coming”

Told the little one.

“Up the glass! Someone is smoking”

I insisted.

“Why do people smoke?”

Asked the elder one.

People try out smoking.

In peer pressure.

Just for fun.

To prove a point

That I TOO CAN.

Slowly they fall prey to it.

Three inches long white stick.

With poison inside.

It gives a high.

Shelter the mind.

From every challenge it faces.

Incapable to handle.

They lose themselves in smoke rings.

Unknowingly, it becomes a part of their lives

And often, the cause of their death!

Addicted to the killer puff.

How much ever they run away,  

It chases.

It chases them from home to office to hospitals.

Lungs turn black, like the burnt walls

In a severe fire tragedy.

The tragedy follows to the cremation ground.

Leaving behind young kids and hapless families very early.

Do you see the skull there?

Wait, that skull is mine.

Oh, no!

I was talking to them only in my dream.

If only I could have realized earlier.

I exhaled regret.

But, it’s too late,

Really too late.