Where you see smoke, is only a warning , where you see fire holds the answers.

Smoke doesn’t rise without reason.
It clings,
and crawls along the edges of the air,
and with every breath a warning.

You can pretend it isn’t there,
but your lungs will remind you.
You can deny the fire,
but your eyes will sting with its presence.

Smoke is never innocent.
It is memory of something burning,
or the promise that it soon will.

Sometimes what smolders is anger.
Sometimes sadness,
Sometimes it’s the deception,
that was forced too long into silence,
finally breaking into sparks.

And when it clears,
all that’s left is the trace of
the ashes that say:
you will never unknow this.

There is where the work begins.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

Is smoke a warning, or a lure? Perhaps the fire it hides has only just begun to burn.