curling shadows

There are memories taking the shapes of shadows and curling in lazy, arrogant fashion. I suppose staying motionless is my form of acceptance. Accept the soft curves of smoke, kissing my forehead and beckoning upward. Accept the ascent toward sky; this smoke will collide with the ceiling and remain. I inhale deeply. I push the two halves of my fragile brain together behind my ribs and hope it remains intact; I will not lose myself when I lose my lungs. But I exhale and watch sharp shards of glass veiled in smoke, hiding in shadows until incandescent lamps expose their escape brilliantly. I am stone on the ground and I do not care to retrieve them, so I wait for myself to float back to me. I watch the room grow hazy with each exhale. I watch the ceiling sparkle with fugitive fragments, and I sink into absent memory.