It is a flame that ignites this experience,
A flickering light of pure destruction,
Starting something that cannot easily be stopped,
Therein lies the beauty of destruction giving birth to life.
How strange it is to muse over something so small and fleeting,
Yet this silent, guilty pleasure is much like life,
No one knows for sure how long either will last,
But when they reach their inevitable end, we are always left wanting more.
Each drag pulling in an experience for us,
Though so much more of the dancing tendrils escape,
Fluttering upwards and disappearing into the life-giving air,
And, for intensive purposes, passing us by.
No more suitable metaphor for our lives exists than this,
We take in only so much of what we want,
Yet most of it just passes us by,
Just like the smoke, slipping through our uncomprehending fingers.
Yet we puff on and on,
Drawing in all we can till the very end,
The last, great inspire the most bittersweet,
Leaving us numb to all else in this world.
And so the cycle continues on,
All of us taking in just as much as we can,
Even though we know that the ultimate end will mean death,
The allure of the hangdog feelings all our minds do crave.
To stare into the box is to see the world at large,
Each wrapped gift like the lives of us all,
Some seeming longers than others,
Others to be snuffed out before their time.
But addiction is a most curious thing,
No matter how many warnings we see,
Our minds and bodies, indeed our very souls, crave only that which pleases,
A pleasure, in both cases, that leads only to extinguishment.
