The Do Something 2005 National 2nd Hand Slam Winner

Every year, Do Something has a national poetry slam about secondhand smoke and its effects on teenagers. The poem below was chosen from a huge field as the ultimate winner. Get inspired and get your poem ready for this October's National online 2nd hand poetry slam.

 

'Untitled'

© 2005 Lyla J., 17

the cigarette

is an insect

contaminated contorted and crawling like cockroaches on apartment floors

and lighter flames are blazing under a squirming abdomen

I put this creature to my lips

You put this creature to your lips

so much lies in that cigarette you smoke

so much planning goes into that first drag you ever took

and through camel Joe and prickly-cheeked cowboys

they

found

you

and through ice cream truck ads and sexy saxophone players

they

found

you

A white paper shell is that media concealing all the brown horrors that lie underneath

The white paper shell is a sexy goddess with cancer between her knuckles, masking her black lungs

On a white paper shell are the lines of gunpowder on which essays of fictitious beauty are written

Underneath a white paper shell lays gnarled tobacco like brown barbed wire

combustion products of this metal are cast down into fresh, pink, lively lungs

drawing in this foreign substance and dying

and dying

and dying

over and over with each hit of carcinogenic glamour

over and over with each inhalation of goopy death

oh, but wait

there's a filter…

filters guarantee safety like bush guarantees democracy

keeping everything but

hydrogen cyanide carbon monoxide

ammonia pyridine

menthol and of course

nicotine

from entering the lungs

not only lungs of countless teens, not only lungs of long-addicted farmers, not only lungs of frustrated restaurant workers, but the lungs of

little Maria and brother

sittin' on car seats in

the back of mommy's van

The danger is invisible like the plastic cellophane it's wrapped in

The danger is transformed from chemical hazards to friendly camels on warm grains of sand

The danger is contaminated like crawling cockroaches

and

I put this creature to my lips

You put this creature to your lips

I buy 20 of these creatures for 5/pack

You buy 20 of these creatures for 5/pack

These radioactive sticks are addicting and worthless

and this is sincere as I once smoked cigarettes

without fear.

 

 

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Drug Abuse

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