The smoke is clearing, but the smell will linger for a while after.

I used to live in homes that housed people who smoked cigarettes inside of them. The walls were permanently discolored. I didn't realize the discoloration unless something on a wall needed to be rearranged, and I got to see the color the wall once was.

Smoke is air; at least that's how I think of it. It gives oxygen a shape as it moves before dissipating. Isn't it incredible that something as visually temporary, such as smoke, can have lasting impacts in many ways?

Thinking of smoke makes me reflect on the way traumas have shaped my life. I'm not living through them, and I haven't in many years. No one can see them, not even me - memories and flashbacks aren't something I experience. In moving about my house (mind) and rearranging the art on the walls (thoughts), I've noticed a discoloration behind every painting and work.

I exist in a stained, odor-filled vessel and have gotten used to the conditions. I deserve better but don't know how to fix this mess. Going to therapy, which isn't something I've done in months, is something that only seemed to get me to be okay with the fact that my home was a mess and to hold compassion for myself. That isn't going to get the smell out. I can't move my state of mind; I'm stuck with it. However, I'm trying my best to change it. It's a hard thing to do when others are smoking in a place with labels everywhere telling them not to.

there is something
painfully familiar

about the heaviness i’m feeling
as my heart tumbles

ever so slowly
out of my chest

i will miss you