He woke up trembling, another sleepless night,  another miserable day to come.  Sleep deprivation is finally catching up to him. The long treacherous nights felt like eternity, tied to his addiction’s leash, he was being pulled in a direction he wished he could change. His life had become like weights tied to his ankles pulling him into an abyss in which he could no longer breath. Suffocation of the mind, body and soul .

It all started in high school when he was kicked out of his home. He had nowhere to breath  for months. A vacation from the everyday pain of life was in the form of rolled up tobacco sold in little white boxes, full of little white lies. As soon as his lips felt the soft tip of the cigarette he knew a monster within himself was being born. The cigarette nurtured the pain he felt inside, The smoke made him forget his past and the fire burned the pain in his heart where it would soon evolve into ashes. It was a sad life. Everyday he began to dig himself a deeper hole leading towards a path of self destruction, nicotine became his life.

Late nights alone struggling to make ends meet, he felt no purpose.  Life was never easy for him. A soul without a purpose is like a ship without a sail. Pain grew inside him for as long as he can remember and it never seemed to stop. Unfortunate series of events  early in his life determined the way he was going to live the rest of it . He knew his life was not going anywhere, Why live if you don’t have a reason to?

Years after suffering, from being alone,  he started to create a life for himself. Trying his hardest to change his fate , the winter of his life was slowly changing to summer. His soul was set on fire from something more than a lighter, it was now ignited by a woman.  He felt the same desire and comfort in her as he did with his cigarettes.  He believed she was what he needed to feel alive. Their summer went back to a winter when she decided to leave. His two true loves could not co-exist peacefully and he chose what he needed most, his cigarettes. The foul ugly odors emanated from his mouth,  not only from the smoke but his words, he knew it was slowly killing him but he could never let go. She wanted badly to stay but she could not cope with his desire for nicotine.  After her ultimatum, she was left with no other choice but to leave. His heart was somewhere else. Somewhere she couldn’t reach.

After she left he was never the same, the small ashes of feelings left within himself,  were slowly lit up and blown by the wind into the cold air. The smoke wasn’t clearing. He made attempts to quit but he was always dragged back to where he started.  He had no escape from his dark reality with his covert obsession becoming his killer.

  This is where all his nightmares and sleepless nights began.  Every single night he woke up gasping for air,  feeling a burning pain in his lungs like flames were slowly consuming him from the inside out. Fear possessed him, leaving him paralyzed with the strength to only see the apparition in the corner. It lurked and could be felt. The presence was impossible to ignore. He watched the figure every night until it released him to move again. The hours he spent hopelessly entranced watching the apparition left him with  no words to describe what haunted his dreams. Each night the figure moved closer never making a sound, just causing him a indescribable pain he couldn’t escape from. It was difficult to breath but he survived every night slowly feeling closer to his end.

The days and nights became timeless, he was being dragged along by his desirable taste for the smoke.  The closer the apparition moved, the stronger the flames felt, his soul was slowly burning away and he couldn't stop. The control wasn’t in his hands anymore. Finally the apparition moved out of the darkness and he was able to see what was causing his suffocating nightmares. It was here, showing him his biggest fears.   Now he understood why he felt it on his lips, why he felt it in his hands and why he felt it within himself.  The apparition was long and thin. It’s look was deceiving of its true inner self,  it’s sole purpose is to profit,  it’s here to cause death and suffering to the easily susceptible. It's easy to find but hard to get away from once you’ve given it the power to control you, even if it was only started for fun.  It lingers in your thoughts and receives priority everywhere you go. It doesn’t give you a choice.  It reeked of death and nicotine, and it was emanating smoke which was darkening his room, thoughts and lungs.  Cigarettes and the addiction to nicotine overtook his life, his heart and his love. Now everything has become ashes.