I write this with shaking hands.

Shaking over you,

But I'll blame the nicotine.

Our relationship being the same as what I do alone now.

A spark of a lighter.

Nothing but cold and then it happens.

A spark and a flame,

Warm and welcoming,

Bring relief of heat to my numb fingers.

What I wouldn't do to just hold you there.

But the longer I hold on the more it burns.

I draw you closer to my face,

The distance between us the length of a cigarette.

Pull the flame to the tip,

Start the slow burn to my demise.

You started a fire and tried to douse it,

Hot coals survived and start their journey toward my lips.

No turning back.

Breathing you in hurts  so good.

Drawing the smoke of your soul into my lungs.

I didn't know poison could taste so good.

I know I shouldn't hold it in for so long but I don't want you to end.

I hold on in hopes that your smoke will find the hole in my heart.

Right as you find it I release you into the air,

Watch you swirl right in front of my eyes,

Dancing in the wind in need of a dance partner.

I reach out for you,

But you slip through my fingers reminding me that we will never be.

I take you in again.

We still have some time together.

It starts with a tingle in my toes and works its way up my legs.

You make my knees go weak.

The more we do this the weaker I become.

But the heat of this all is coming closer to my face,

And although it's starting to burn my nose I keep going.

Drawing you closer and closer to my lips,

Waiting for that moment of contact.

That moment you and I meet and all the suffering I went through,

Breathing you in and breathing you out,

Can finally end.

I'm exhausted from this painful process of pulling you in close and then letting you slip away.

It's time to let you stay.

Just before we meet we are stopped.

Stopped by the poison filled filter,

Filled with the longing,

The yearning,

The burning inside of me for you.

And I know I said I wouldn't get addicted.

I said it was just a one time deal.

I'll quit after this one.

But what I didn't say is that I have never quit in my entire life.

I can't quit,

But my box of cigarettes is running out,

And for each one I use another day of my life is shaved off.

My life, the cigarette, is slowly burning down, becoming nothing but an overfilled filter.

My hands are shaking with you,

For you,

Because of you.

My hands are shaking at the thought of you reading this.

I can wash these shaking hands,

Take a shower,

Bathe in cologne,

But a trace of you will always linger around me.

Linger like the dying embers on the ground.

Linger like the taste of you on my tongue.

Linger like the thought of you buzzing in my mind.

I said I wouldn't get addicted,

But I never knew the pain of you would hurt so good.