Catching Smoke london atil

Catching Smoke

by london atil

We had been doing this for centuries before you did.

Grey mustaches cap chapped red lips blowing white smoke Into towers. Rising and expanding into cotton castles.

We still do it better than you.

We sit and wait, watching it develop into something worth wasting our breath.

And we invest our time into it, We are patient.

Hours pass to get that one ring that stops the room, The ring that creates a silence, Not a quiet, A silence so complete that you can hear the ring rumble like a pocket thunderstorm. A silence only broken when someone exhales and shatters it.

It writhes like a snake on fire, Turning in every direction on a billion vertebrae And vanishing sooner than it got there.

But it was worth it.

Your smoke is a waste. You smoke like a paranoid, nervous person late for a meeting. Gnawing on your poison filter like a pacifier you just can’t put down. Only exhaling in long thin plumes. Your few rings are quick tricks to make girls ask “How do you do that?” But they don’t mention your stink. And that even in smoke, the thickness is what really counts.