In my lungs

There’s an empty cigarette packet beside me
crumpled and pocked with burns  
and still you inhabit my lungs
lingering long after the smoke has been exhaled
and the nicotine races again  
to the edge of my nerves  
begging for a fire
and the inhalation of slow death  
 
There is nothing pure about longing  
or the jagged edge of addiction  
that bleeds as it relieves  
carving us out until we are nothing more
than raw nerves in a hollowing shell  
of someone we used to be  
when love was more than sentimental  
and nostalgia didn’t sit on our tongues
with the tang of yesterday’s ground teeth  
 
© Indie Adams 2013