Cigarettes
I sit here, a cigarette between my fingers, the smoke curling lazily around me, wrapping me within. I watch it rise and vanish, what a replica of my life. Ssshhhhhh I am not here to tell you about pain. No, pain is too obvious, too loud. It’s the silence that consumes you. The silence is what does the damage. It sneaks up on you, coils itself around you, and before you know it, you’re trapped. And the worst part? You did it to yourself. It wasn't always like this. I remember trying to speak up. Trying to talk about those hands chasing me. Do you remember, mumma?
I told you,
I tried to speak, but you said hush.
You told me to be silent,
and so I was.
I buried every scream, every tear,
in the smoke of my cigarettes,
in the flame that burned too close to my skin.
It hurt, Mumma,
but it’s the only way I knew how to feel alive.
I am your bad child,
the one who never listened,
the one who did everything wrong.
But did you ever hear me, Mumma?
Did you ever care to know why the silence was so loud?
You told me to keep quiet,
so I stitched my lips shut with the embers of my sorrow.
I don’t cry anymore,
I just burn.
I am made of smoke and fire,
and I’m fading, Mumma.
You told me to be good,
but this is all I know.
The cigarettes keep me company,
the ashes keep me warm.
Am I good enough now, Mumma?
Now that I’ve learned to be silent,
now that I’ve stopped begging for you to see me.
Are you happy now?
Because I’ve been silent for a long, long while.
I am the child you wanted,
but in the silence,
I died.
I was once alive. I loved myself, I still do. Earlier I had love myself by loving the people I loved. Loving the people who said they loved me.
I wonder what part of me you loved,
because it wasn’t this.
Not the cold,
not the stillness,
not the girl who learned how to bury
her heartbeat beneath the weight of a cigarette.
You loved something soft,
something warm.
But she’s gone.
And you were never there to see her leave.
There’s a cracked mirror on the wall opposite me. I see my reflection in it sometimes, distorted, faint. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the real me the broken, fractured version that I have become. I used to cry, you know. I used to let the tears flow, let them cleanse me, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they would wash away the pain. But then one day, they stopped.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. I didn’t wake up one morning and say, today I will no longer cry. No, it happened slowly, like a creeping fog. One day, the tears dried up, and I felt nothing. Or maybe I felt everything, but it was too much to let out. So I buried it. I buried it so deep that even I couldn’t find it anymore.
The world taught me silence—
taught me to swallow words
like bitter pills,
taught me that my voice was a weapon
meant only to be used against myself.
Now, the only sound I know
is the crack of bones
under the weight of memories.
I am fragile,
but I’ve learned to wear the cracks
like armor,
to hide my brokenness
behind the smoke.
They say strength is in the silence,
but they don’t know
how silence can kill,
how it can strip you down
until you’re nothing
but a hollow shell,
a body moving through the motions
while the mind burns itself alive.
You see, they tell you to speak. They tell you to let it out, that it’s healthy, that it’s what you are supposed to do. But when you do, when you open your mouth and the words spill out, no one listens. No one understands. They look at you with those eyes,those judging, pitying eyes and they tell you you are overreacting, that it’s all in your head. And so you stop. You stop speaking. You stop feeling. You stop being.
They tell me to speak,
to let it out.
But when I open my mouth,
nothing comes.
How do you speak
when the words are tangled
in your throat,
when they’re knotted so tight
you can’t breathe?
I’ve swallowed so much silence
that it’s become a part of me,
woven itself into my bones,
wrapped around my heart
like a cage I built
with my own hands.
Now, I sit here in this room this room that’s closing in on me, dark and suffocating, with shadows that cling to the walls like the ghosts of everything I tried to forget. The cigarette burns slowly in my hand, the ash falling like the pieces of me that have crumbled away. I used to think that if I stayed quiet, if I kept it all inside, I had be stronger. That if I didn’t let anyone see the cracks, they wouldn’t be able to break me.
The smoke curls around me,
a lover’s embrace—
cold, fleeting,
but familiar.
I watch it rise,
dissipate into the air,
just like the promises
you once made.
I could scream,
but what’s the point?
The world doesn’t listen.
It never has.
Instead, I light another cigarette,
let the smoke fill my lungs,
because at least it’s something,
at least it’s real,
even if it’s killing me.
But silence isn't strength, it's poison, And I had been drinking it for years..
There’s a tear in my eye, but it doesn’t fall. It just stays there, suspended, trapped like everything else inside me. I feel it burn, like the smoke in my lungs, but it won’t escape. It’s as if my body has forgotten how to let go. And maybe that’s the truth. Maybe I have forgotten how to let go. How to cry. How to scream. How to live.
The stars once shone in my favor,
but now they hide their faces,
ashamed of what I’ve become
a ghost, a shell,
locked within these four walls,
a prisoner to my own despair.
The chains are not made of iron,
but of silence,
of words unspoken,
of tears unshed.
I sit here,
with naught but the shadows
for company,
as the world moves on
without me,
forgetting that I ever existed.
Oh, cruel fate,
to bind me so!
To leave me here,
in this hell of my own making.
I pace the room, dragging my fingers along the walls, leaving faint streaks of ash behind. It’s like I am trying to mark my presence, to prove that I am still here, still alive, still fighting. But the fight’s been silent for so long, I don’t even know if I have the energy to continue.
Oh, to be forgotten by the gods themselves!
To cry unto the heavens
and hear naught but silence!
These four walls,
these cold, relentless sentinels,
they mock me,
they hold me as I crumble within,
a statue carved from misery,
left to erode by time and neglect.
Once, there was light,
once, there was breath,
but now I am a wraith,
drifting through this purgatory,
lost to the world
that promised me sanctuary
but gave me chains instead.
It builds, you know. The silence. The pain. It builds until it’s the only thing you can hear, the only thing you can feel. And then you begin to hate yourself. You begin to feel toxic, like you’re the problem, like you’re the one poisoning the world around you. But it’s not the world. It’s you. It’s the silence you’ve buried so deep inside that it’s begun to rot.
The cigarette burns down to the filter, and I let it fall, watching the ash scatter across the floor. It’s funny, isn’t it? How something so small, so insignificant, can feel so heavy. Like the weight of a thousand unshed tears, a thousand unspoken words. But there’s no one here to hear me now. No one to tell me I’m overreacting. No one to tell me it’s all in my head.
I replace the tears with smoke, the words with ash, because it’s easier that way. It’s easier to let the smoke fill the room than to let the emotions fill my heart. But they don’t see the scars. They don’t see what’s inside. They only see the surface, the calm, composed version of me that I’ve perfected over the years. They don’t see the storm that’s been raging beneath.
The cigarette snaps in my hand. A clean break. It surprises me, the suddenness of it. I stare at the broken pieces, my fingers trembling as I crush it into the ashtray. It’s the first time today that I’ve felt in control, the first time I’ve had the power to destroy something instead of being the one destroyed.
You cannot silence pain forever. It eats you alive from the inside, festering like a wound that never heals. I should know. I’ve tried. I’ve tried for years to keep it locked away, to hide it, to pretend it doesn’t exist. But it’s there. It’s always been there, waiting, lurking, ready to consume me when I least expect it.
I stand in front of the mirror now, the same cracked mirror that’s reflected my brokenness for so long. But this time, I look. I really look. I see myself—the real me, not the version I’ve shown the world. The me that’s been hiding behind the silence, behind the cigarettes and the smoke.
It burns,
slowly, quietly,
until the flame becomes nothing but a flicker
and the air is thick with the smoke of us.
I let it all fall,
every word, every touch,
until it’s just ashes.
Nothing left but the nostalgia
of who we were.
Did we ever exist
outside the fire?
If I don’t speak now, I will fade. I know that. I have always known that. But speaking… it’s not easy. It’s terrifying. Because once you let the words out, once you let the pain escape, you can’t take it back. It’s out there, exposed, raw, and vulnerable. But if I don’t, if I keep it inside, I know I will disappear.
I flick the lighter one last time, the sound echoing in the room. The flame dances for a moment, then dies as I close it. The silence returns, but this time, it feels different. This time, it feels like a choice.
Emotions are meant to be felt. They’re meant to be spoken. Because when you shut them down, when you bury them deep inside, they don’t go away. They fester, they rot, they consume. And then, there’s nothing left but smoke.
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