Nag Champa

You are too much like incense. 

You burn. It is short lived; bittersweet. Bitter.

My lungs cloud with the thin trail of smoke creeping it’s way into the air.

The air I breathe for far too long. And my head pounds because the smoke lasts too long.

Or maybe not long enough.

It becomes too much, the clouds and thin trails, so I put you out like a cigarette.

Sometimes I let you burn until the ember reaches its end, in its own time. 

I let your essence slither it’s way into my lungs, I cough and my eyes fill with tears but I allow your strength to fill me.

I can’t bring myself to wave you away.

So you cease, but you linger.

Waiting as the world around you collects dust.

I watch you as if you could light yourself, forever hypnotized by the impossibility of the idea.

You remain inanimate. An item. An idea. 

And I light you again, only when you have a job: to mask the odor and disguise it with a temporary antique fragrance.

I have always loved that fragrance. It is all too familiar. It is home.

But you are not home.