Smoking Gun

The mother I had is no longer here,
The heart, it beats and the lungs take what little air they can filter.
But she is not here.
She is alive but no longer lives or gives.
Her voice is coarse and hoarse and when laughter rears its ugly black dead head,
It froths and it crackles and it ends in blood red eyes.
The contrast is stark, light and dark, you can see in her pale,sallow skin.
The smokes she smokes, she croaks and she chokes,
She sears her flesh from within.

I nearly followed down your path.
You exist only in an old photograph.