Secondhand Smoke

Life sometimes smells of tobacco and other people's advice, clinging to your clothes like memories. It seems simple enough: they teach you to be strong, independent, not to wait for help - but between the lines you can sense the weariness, as if this knowledge came too early. The world is indeed cold, and love in it is like a rare warmth that you still expect to have a catch.

And yet there is a kind of tenderness in this smoke. The kind that remains when everything else has blown away. When you realize that you don't need to open the window to air out the past - it will become lighter on its own if you stop being afraid to breathe deeper.