It's the Little Rules...

Nicotine is the smell
of my new rage.
If you light that,
I want to say,
on this stop,
I will
kill you.
And I could
I so could
my hands are itching
to drive your head into the first
No Smoking/Fumar Prohibido sign
that I can find.

I don’t share my cancers with you;
I keep my poisons to myself.

Do you see me
showing you the things I see
that make me beg for blindness?
How the world’s constant barrage
of its message of nothing
and nothing and nothing and
nothing
make me listen to my music
so loudly
that my ears ring for hours,
for days,
for my life?
Do I share the scent of the air
that makes my stomach
pull itself free of my body,
purging while I gag?

This life gives me tumors
malign
and inoperable.
No chemo
and no soft bed for the last
choking breath;
that you’ll have.
I just get to sit here
while you shit here
and share your death with you
and keep mine all mine.

It's how societies treat the little rules, the ones that are written for the concern of others, that tell you about the societies. How they're followed and how they're enforced.

I can't figure out what is more frustrating: the guy smoking while LEANING AGAINST THE POST with the above sign on it, or the four CTA workers who have to be reminded that it's against the fucking law that Captain Cancer is smoking.

Of course, I may also be angry about something else, classically displacing any aggression or anxiety on an outside agent.
Still, the sign says "No Smoking." Asshole.