“Nikki” by Dylan W. displays a sibling’s perspective of a brother’s nicotine addiction. It shows how the nicotine, personified as Nikki, is taking the character’s brother away and changing him. It shows how cigarettes don’t just affect the person smoking them, but how it can strain relationships. “Nikki” definitely makes a difference about how smoking is viewed, and provides a refreshing, and possibly more relatable, outlook of the situation.
    

Growing up in a family where some family members smoke and some seem to smoke heavily, I was constantly told to never smoke. The poem, though about a sibling, is a really familiar topic to me. The line “I want to help him kick it, Cracks a new pack- Reaches back, Gets his lighter, And sparks another,” really makes me think how many times this has happened to me. They want to stop and you want to help, but they can’t just stop, and you can’t just say, “don’t smoke” and have all your problems go away. It’s a process to quit smoking, but they haven’t figured that process out yet, and sometimes I get mad at them for it, but I get over it and want to help all over again. “Nikki,” for the short (and great) poem it is, sums up looking on from the outside pretty well.