No Smoking

Had it not been for smokers,

matchboxes would have been just another commodity;

the kind you keep losing track of

between haywire groceries

and unpaid electricity bills.

But once you make a habit

of burning cigarettes like calories,

the matchsticks begin believing

they hold the strings to sanity.

Give them enough time,

and one even starts believing

fire exists because it does.

Illusion is a rather efficient analgesic;

numbs you just enough

to mistake proximity for power.

Gather enough matchsticks together,

and suddenly matchboxes become religion;

a revolution sworn

to cleanse the world of its filth.

Except fire has never cleaned a thing.

It merely blackens what survives it.

But who explains nuance

to a box full of matchsticks

thumping their chests

like Neanderthals discovering thunder?

And then one day,

the matchstick finds itself

on the other side of gasoline;

unaware of scale,

anatomy,

or architecture.

So it gathers its little army of matchsticks

and begins screaming battle cries

at a thing

built entirely

to swallow fire whole.

And gasoline, almost tenderly,

spreads its arms and legs,

lies still with a wry smile,

and waits.

The matchsticks learned that day:

you cannot absolve

what you cannot contain.