Romeo y Julieta Churchills

O Habano, brown monarch wrapped in a cloak of sun-soaked earth, you are a rolled scroll containing the secret history of the island. Before my thirst for you, you were a broad leaf, a sleeping green flag in the kingdom of the veguero, drinking the violent Caribbean sun, softened by the nocturnal breath of the sea. Your body, a firm cylinder of patience, holds the aroma of aged wood, of honey that remembers the flower, of leather bound in a forgotten library. I bring the fire to your brow, a small, devoted sun, and you begin your slow ode, your transformation of fire into cloud. The first puff, a sharp, peppery confession. Then, the smoke unfolds like a flag of peace inside my soul, a dense, blue-gray thought that climbs towards the ceiling of the afternoon. O solemn ceremony, this quiet burning, this conversation between my hand and your ash, growing, a white cathedral that threatens to fall but stands, defiant, a testament to your perfect combustion. You are not mere vice, you are a slow hourglass, a measured minute of communion. In your delicate ash I see the sediment of time, in your fragrant demise, the celebration of the moment. So I sit with you, and we are two silent accomplices: you, offering your body to my fire, I, receiving your wisdom as smoke, until nothing remains but the memory of your warmth on my fingers, and the ghost of your soul, lingering in the room, like a gentle, persistent truth.