i don’t smoke

i don’t smoke. i’m sitting in the stairs outside my kitchen, looking at my future in the distance. the blue lights of the hospital far ahead the chain link fence. i’m exhaling my warmth one last time. i don’t want to smoke, because i don’t like it. i like the embrace of the cold air, the reassurance of night. i like the place that lets me stay when i don’t like my life, my mind, myself. i like to inhale the cold one last time. i don’t like smoking, except for when i need to die.