Panchito‘s Diary

I sit beside a person I love while they told me how difficult is it to bond and have a relationship with someone who has lived through many ways of systematic abuses. They give them all, both I mean. But the scars are very deep and only time can alleviate the consequences. I see myself and relate with both sides while hiding behind smoke that the wind pushes to my attentive face.

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I walk between two lovely people, one of them tells with a hurtful voice how difficult was to see her family being too patriarchal to take care of their mother when in need. Blind to the work that her mom offered to everyone when able. Her eyes watered, her voice trembled and we the loved ones heard in silence while we got lung kissed by her smoke breath.

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I sat beside my kitchen college, while i heard that his family neighbours died after being bombed. His whole family almost was systematically murdered too.

5 cigarettes after another were smoked while telling the story. The smoky wind got into my lungs and the sadness and madness into my mind.

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Not only the air is poisoned around me, but also the world and the system that was built do exploit us all.

Tobacco, like me, comes from the Americas. Like Coca, Mate, Ayahuasca and hundreds of other plants, were used to survive and connect to each other, now this are merely prostituted in the industry.

I feel connected to all this people, because their pain is my pain. Their joy is my joy. Maybe that’s why I dont mind passive smoking.

But I strongly wish, nobody would have the need to consume drugs only to consume themselves.

I hope this fire that we use to burn our lungs will find its path and melt the chains that enslave us.