PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Arriving at the Christmas party there he was, my uncle with his pack of cigarettes. After my grandmother’s birthday there they were, smoking up the entrance which happened to be the exit as well. Like a magic trick, people suddenly appeared and disappeared in the smoke cloud my uncle created from a mix of tobacco leaves, ammonia, nicotine, and a bunch of other deathly chemicals. I was little and I remember the smoke screen my uncle made to disappear into himself, I remember me wishing I could do that as well, like an illusion. Even when there were no cigarettes I sensed the smoke screen, the smoke barrier, the concrete wall. My mind grew, I didn’t like the smoke cloud so much, I found it disgusting, despicable, I started to understand, but also I started to forget about the barrier, I didn’t pay much attention to it anymore, I didn’t saw the whole point of it. My mind got even bigger, and I started to wonder about the story of my uncle, I never knew it. I started to understand more and more, and again I saw the point of the smoke screen, I started to savior it, I got it.  We shared the smoke screen, then, I thought I understood him better, but the smoke just blinded me more. Until this one day, the marriage of a cousin of mine was to be celebrated, and we all gathered the day before. I was starting to build the screen, I could feel it getting thicker, the illusion was starting, and then I stopped. I noticed my uncle sitting with my father at a table; the screen was no longer there. I saw this chance and I embraced it. I heard the story of my uncle, finally, and I understood. The smoke was a getaway, I got it all, I started to think about the cigarettes, and I understood that they were a getaway for me, too. This addictive substance was a link between me and my uncle, not the best one, but it was something. Even though life was not as tough on me as it was to him at my same age, I thought I got it. The cigarettes were unfairness, they were insecurities, they were our way of burning through hard times. A getaway between our fingers, a getaway that will make us bite the dust sooner than later, but at the end, a getaway still. (Ironically, my grandfather died from a disease caused from him smoking too much.  May he rest in peace)

-Carlos A. Ramírez Martínez