Welcome Mat

I hope you’re enjoying that cigarette.

That would make one of us.

I hope you’re enjoying your freedom

to smoke uninhibited, while

restricting mine to

breath.

Its hot, smoke going

down to that verging on painful spot in the bottom of your lungs.

I hope you’re healthy and you stay that way.

But more than that, much, much more than that I hope that

I am. And that I do.

See, every time you calmly, unknowingly, satisfied, exhale

directly into my smoke-hating, and until recently, decently-smelling face

rage builds.

Its cold: a snowball, growing, circling, collecting.

And if the unforgiving smoke doesn’t kill me

this grey loathing surely will.

So enjoy that cigarette, enjoy

blowing its refuse into my face and feel my fury as you go home,

relaxed after your café chat, climb your winding staircase and find a steaming, fiercely putrid pile of shit on your welcome mat!