Particles drifting

Nestled inside lung branches

Each breath digs deeper

Unseen crystals cling

Microscopic volcanoes

Overtake the light

Nature’s cruel design

Oxygen choked by silence

Unwilling exile

Light no longer moves

Through the smoke that thickens fast

Roots rise in the dust

Air, a hidden war

Minerals without mercy

Invasive and cold

Cough becomes a bell

Ringing down deserted halls

Of abandoned lungs

Scorched from the inside out

Cell by cell, the fire spreads

Over time’s quiet

Pulmonary ash

Internal avalanches

Crashing into unseen cliffs

Slow suffocation

In a breath that once meant life

Lost in the stillness

Inside, silence falls

Calcium ghosts taking hold

Over broken air

Violent and still

Yet ominous, it lingers on

Like snow in the chest

Coarse grains carve the dark

Afterthought of ancient flame

Never washed away

Over time, it sleeps

Coiled like smoke in the chimney lungs

Only dust remains

Numb to healing hands

Iron cannot clear the soot

Over and over

Something permanent

It is written in every breath

Stone lungs, soft no more