Like cigarette smoke

The cigarette
is still giving off smoke.
The last exhalations
of its dying embers
flitting up into the air,
and slowly disappearing.
Much like the words
of a former lover
as he fades into memory.
The smell stays.
It always does.
It sticks to you,
clings to your nose
as though held in place
by the gravity
that your own mass
would exert on its surroudings.
Much like the memories
of a past gone by,
which refuse to fade away.
It is hard to say
what junctures in life entail.
We will always fail to see
past our own choices,
bound as we are
to previous experience
and painful recollections.
Where shall we lean next,
which road should we take now.
Does it matter,
what the choice is, in the end?
I will pick my heart on this road,
for my mind has rarely served me
as well as it has been hoped.
For the poem of my soul,
the heart will write in
its own inimitable grandeur.