My chest burns heavily,
as if the world lit a fire inside me.
Not of passion,
but of suffocation —
smoke wrapping around my lungs,
deciding each breath for me.
Time to die, they say,
not in the grave,
but in each breath stolen,
in each moment
where fresh air is denied.
Yet within the ash,
I keep a spark
that refuses to go out.
A spark that waits
for the clean wind
to fan it back to life.