This is a poem about what it's like

to be cigarette smoke.

To be toxic,

dangerous,

man-made

and unmade.

To be inhaled--

felt inside a person's lungs.

To burn the throat of the one inhaling;

to make their voice raspy

with addiction and desire.

Then to be exhaled--

burnt out,

used up,
But nevertheless silently deadly.

To be torn apart on the wind

molecule by molecule.

To be invisible,
To be sensed but not seen,
To be the hint of curling sulfur in the nostrils of others.

To exist in a million particles

without a fixed shape

or purpose.

To be love and unloved

in varying degrees.

To have one part of you forgotten entirely

the moment another deep breath of you

is taken.