Sedimemts of Smoke

Blowing puffs
Stressing bluffs
Locking cuffs
Counting rebuffs


We’re droplets dissolved in chemicals
Chasing currents like lost minerals
Filling prescriptions like vitamins
Trapped in the maze, lab rats in experiments
Ivory stolen like tusks from elephants
History buried, laid down as sediments
Marching in silence, bleeding regiments
Candles burn down flicker for sentiments

And still
we wait.
The chair remains empty,
the bread grows stale,
the door does not open,
the knock never comes.
A man ties his shoes,
unties them,
ties them again.
No journey follows.


The soldier neatly folds his uniform,
though there is no war to fight anymore.
The priest practices his sermon,
though nobody goes to church.


We talk,
words dropping like ash,
sentences piling walls over silence.
Time comes full circle
the flame consumes the wick,
the wick consumes the flame.
Nothing's over,
nothing starts,
and in between
we live,
we wait,
we smoke.