You Are Greater Then Your Addiction

By Divya Bharti

Tonight, I see my reflection; after my beloved has passed.

I see an omen, a bad reflection

In a faux antique mirror.

I see a spirit trapped.

Pale and perished skin,

wrinkles deeply intact,

decreased collagen and broken elastin,

sagged and drooping breast.

I touch my hollow orbit.

I see my stained nails.

I grind my teeth, yellow teeth and damaged gum.

The melancholy of contrition; after my beloved has passed.

I search for you one more time,

in the gutters of my ashtray,

I spot a cigarette butt.

I touch you tenderly,

Inhale, exhale.

I put you between my lips,

I seek you, my wounds healing with smoke.

Puffing on crack,

Scornful lip; remorseful smile

I let you consume me- one last time.

This night I tell you of the first time when and where I borrowed you,

Do you remember? You, me, a table of two

and that bob Dylan show.

It started with a puff, slowly I started to think of you,

five hundred times a day.

Igniting fumes dancing on my taste bud and smoke is beautiful.

It caresses.

I borrowed, I lent, now I own.

- my own pack of ‘MARLBORO’.

Tonight I tell you I want to move on now, after my beloved has passed.

You knew him, never intimately though.

Pious and untouched your fumes poisoned his passive breath.

I could not stay more; it’s a suffocating euphoria.

You warned me, “I saw you naked, I saw your flaws.”

“You need my smoke swirl around you, lingering in air even;

if you gasp for breath.”

“you’re no more a lover but an addict now,

You cannot break through your addiction.”

I breathe deep, intoxicated; ‘my breath heavy’.

My lips sunken into a poisoned kiss.

A love so deep, so deep it penetrated my heart

as if only nicotine flowing through my veins.

You burned my withered soul into pile of ashes,

rotting fascia and damaged bones.

I try to breathe but I start to choke,

I coughed, I choked.

You call this a committed coexistence, it’s a toxic relation.

This connection is as real as it gets,

The high that you take me to,

Sending an invite to the impending doom

My laughter was cut short by loud wheezing.

I am an addict. I binged.

Now I purge, I restrict.

I choose life before death does.

I wonder if I can get over it.

Over you; before it’s finally over.

By Divya Bharti