B: C21 Cigarette

Lying on the couch I light the cigarette,
my burdens lifted and worries removed.
I don't see you falling - did you fall?
I don't hear the mothers scream.
Seven minutes and it'll all be gone
but what will have happened then?
In my world things will change -
children born, then they die;
fires are started and planes will crash.
Loads more people leaving
but nothing to do with me.
A father leaves, children cry,
hanging to their broken mother.
She lights a cigarette, blue smoke nipping her eyes;
it hits mine too but I wave away tales of weight
to inhale again.
Social systems collapse and economies fall,
seven minutes equals a lot of pain and death,
eight people dead and twelve born.
(That's not counting rebirths)
So I stub out the cigarette, my faraway cigarette,
and sit on the fence of order and chaos,
the lonely stub burnt and bent.