Smoke

I am not the passionate being I once was.
So alive and yearning to consume anything I could grasp.

My desires like smothered embers have changed.
To wisps of smoke, curling peacefully through the air.

It was always the smoke I liked best.
The light was never so intriguing as the cloud it gave way to.

Every flame must be snuffed eventually,
or else it rages into a destructive monster, eating everything in its way.

I always thought the smoke was death.
That being blown out was the end.
But maybe, quite possibly, the smoke is a life of its own.

Life so beautiful in faint swirls, forgotten and unimportant. Unnoticed.
That’s where I’ve wanted to be.

I have wanted to be the calm gray.
I have longed for the afterthought.
I have needed to be in the so-called mundane.

I sometimes think back on my wick where I burned, and smoldered,
and cried out that I could never be quenched.
I miss that spark a bit sometimes, and what I felt it said about me.

But I was meant to be smoke.
I was meant to be the light scent in life.
I was meant to be the smaug momentarily hanging in the air.
I was meant to be blown where ever life sent me,
not standing obstinate against gales that would overtake me.

I don’t need to be fire.
I don’t want to burn.
I don’t want to be hungry for life
I just want to be a puff
I just want to float gently
I just want to be satisfied with my everyday.