Cigarettes & Smoke

Weekly Photo Challenge: Symbolic

I watched the cigarette smoke dilute in air as I took another puff from it. It made me think of how everything in life has this tendency to dilute and disappear; people, things, feelings. Everything eventually dissolves into nothingness. How everything is finite. Meant to end sooner or later. Yet we cling on; to a person, thing, love for our dear life. Like it’s meant to bring us peace. Like it will save us from the finite nature of life. We become addicted to all these things, like I’ve become addicted to this smoke that slowly fills up my lungs, warming up my airway as I slowly exhale it out and watch it make patterns in the air, momentarily celebrating its freedom as it dances giving its last final performance and then disappears, never to be seen again. This smoke will probably kill me, I know that yet I cling on, maybe because it gives me an illusion of peace, of escape. The same way we cling on to a person, thing, love whatever provides us with illusions. Life isn’t any different from a cigarette and it’s smoke. We know it’s slowly killing us, yet we get so lost in people, things, feelings, watch them slowly take our pieces away as we slowly dissolve into mortality of life. It’s a two-way sword. Either way life is gonna kill us then why not let it destroy us, why not self-destruct, why not let the smoke take over. Why not go down in flames as we reduce to ashes. As our bones turn brittle, skin wrinkles and our memories fade… Like smoke. We savor it for one last time and just like that the darkness takes over.

Note: This post by no means encourages or promotes smoking.
Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health.