burning out

Anna Feng, United States

my grandfather was a serial smoker, but anyone could tell by the weight of his expiration. how once we missed him we couldn’t stop. that lone cigarette drooping from his lips when he left us ironing cold faults out of the sheets and cupping silence. i’ve heard it said addicts live fast and die slow, that bad habits die hard– harder than telling the man with the ashtray balanced on his knee he’s killing us. sūn nü, a light? he’d ask once, then again. because granddaughters can find the ignition faster than the carpal tunnel. he knows, we never asked to grow old of ash stuck to our frames, muddling our better memories. “the grime made his lungs throb and stole the time he never served,” how my grandmother watered his hell down. she claimed his throat was the chimney and his heart the fireplace that kept the lights on, but those who kept him company over long winters said he’d be burnt out by the seventh story. we kept climbing. but in reality, he was every tale his children held each other to, a smoke signal we were relieved blew the other way, clean at last when he was gone.

Anna Feng is a student at Del Norte High School in San Diego, California. She is a California Arts Scholar and Iowa Young Writers Workshop participant. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards, and the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest, and has recently been published in the Lumiere Review. She is the proud owner of a pair of red cowgirl boots she wishes she could take out on the town more often.