“Why do you smoke?” I always ask my father whenever I see him lighting a cigarette on our back porch. The question lingers in the air like the smoke he exhales. His answers are never straightforward, and I don’t press him; I just want to know. I want to understand him, to feel closer to him, as close as he is to his cigarette box. 

When he smokes, I imagine a monster — The Smoke. It’s a monstrous thing, always there, creeping into our home and my father’s lungs. My dad gets sicker and sicker, and my mom constantly warns that it could kill him. She hates the monster with a passion that matches my own. Whenever he lights up, she shoos him outside, as if trying to banish the monster from our lives.  

She often complains to my grandma about how he promises to quit but never does. The monster twists my dad into something unrecognizable, something bad.  

But sometimes, I wonder if my dad is the monster. 

The smoke itself isn’t inherently evil; it makes him sick, yes, but it doesn’t seem to intend any harm. My dad defends it, saying it makes him happy. If it brings him joy, then can it really be the monster? Or is it my dad? I feel confused. Surely I’m wrong. My dad can’t be bad; he’s always been good to me and my siblings. He loves us, that’s what he promised every day. 

Even when he drinks.  

Even when he hits. 

Even when he yells. 

Even when he calls us names that pierce like arrows. 

He loves us, I repeat to myself. I cling to that thought like a life raft. It must be true; I want it to be true. My father loves us. But then there’s The Smoke, lingering, suffocating, threatening to take him away. I know he doesn’t mean to hurt us; he’s just frustrated. We’re all human, we all make mistakes.  

“Dad, can we go to the park?” I ask one evening, hopeful. He turns to me, and I catch a whiff of the acrid smoke as he exhales. “Sure,” he usually says to my little requests, but this time is different. “No. I’m smoking.” His irritation hangs in the air heavier than the smoke itself. I watch the scene unfold — my mom fuming, my dad’s expression hardening. It feels as if The Smoke is tearing our family apart. 

But my mom says my dad is the one who is destroying our lives. I can’t accept that. I won’t believe it. My dad is a good man, a loving father.  

The smoke curls around him like a serpent, tightening its grip. I see him staring into the distance, lost in thought, as if he’s somewhere else entirely. I long to reach him, to pull him back to me, but I’m rooted in place, the weight of my conflicting feelings pinning me down.  

In moments like these, I feel like a bystander in my own life, caught in a battle I don’t fully understand. It’s so easy to blame the smoke, to see it as the enemy, the catalyst of all our family’s pain. But I know deep down that my father chooses to hold onto it, to let it linger, despite the harm it brings. 

He tells me stories about his own childhood, filled with laughter and warmth. I see flashes of that loving man in him, but they’re clouded by The Smoke. It wraps around him like a shroud, obscuring the father I want to believe in. It’s a painful paradox: the monster brings him joy but at a cost.  

I try to reconcile my feelings. Maybe the monster isn’t entirely evil, but it’s definitely hurting him, hurting us. If only he could see that. If only he could understand that his choices have consequences, that love should be more than just words.  

“Dad,” my voice barely breaks through the haze. “I miss you.” It’s the simplest truth, yet it feels loaded. I miss the man who used to take me to the park, who would laugh with me and smile without that haze clouding his eyes.  

He looks at me, and for a moment, I think I see a flicker of understanding. But then the moment passes, and he turns away, back to The Smoke, back to the monster that holds him captive.  

I want to reach out and rescue him, but I realize I’m just a child. I can’t fight The Smoke, and I can’t save him from himself. All I can do is wait, hoping that one day, he’ll see what I see — that the real monster isn’t the smoke, but the choices he makes. Choices that are slowly unraveling our family.  

And so, I watch and wait, praying for the day my father chooses us over the monster.