Cigarettes

It's just silly that small tubes that smolder, give you cancer, and make you stink also have a weird, romanticized appeal.

I started smoking ten years ago, to taste what I used to taste on someone else's lips on my own. I'm probably going to die earlier than otherwise because of how much of a foolish romantic I am.

Oh well.

Staggering down the hill before campus, I prayed to a god that I don't believe in that we wouldn't get stopped by the police so close to the safety of our own rooms. Dear God, just let us make it home. He and I walked side by side, each step deliberate. Try to look sober. Try to look sober. Try. To. Look. Sober. His girlfriend and another girl were just steps behind us, far less in the spirit of the night. He was smoking. His bloodshot, glazed over eyes connected to mine as he held out his hand, cigarette between his fingers. "You want one?" "No." Step. step. s.t.e.p. "Yes." We were practically to the doors of our building. No, never mind, wrong building. Our dorms were just a few steps further. I took the burning cigarette from his long, bony fingers, suddenly conscious of the fact that I had never smoked one. I took a puff. cough. wheeze. cough. We were at the doors, but the cigarette wasn't gone. "Wanna finish this off before we go in?" No. "Yes." His girlfriend's eyes were focused on me, glaring as if the second she looked away I would shove my tongue down his throat, slide my hands across his chest, take her place. What a fucking joke. She went inside anyway. The cigarette was between my fingers, looking far less fashionable in my hand than it did in his. It was burning away. "I fucking hate cigarettes." I said it as I took another puff.

I turned 18 in february, he turned it in september. It was our last year there in Maryland. The first year we actually hung out. I bought you cigarettes and we skipped class together, listening to bright eyes and smoking together. I always liked clove cigarettes better then the ones you smoked, but shared your unfiltered camel cigarettes with you just for the intimacy.

We drove your white truck around in circles, passing cops and buying cigarettes. Driving 45 minutes out of the way just to go to a certain gas station just because we could. I sometimes listen to bright eyes and smoke unfiltered camels just to remind me of those blissful times.

growing up, i watched my parents smoke two packs a day. it was inevitable when i left the house that i'd start, then, but i guess it's kinda funny that i didn't really pick it up as a pasttime and a hobby until my dad was told to quit before he got cancer.

i smoke for a few reasons.

1. it keeps me awake. sometimes i like to go long stretches without sleeping, particularly when driving. smoking keeps me awake better than coffee, better than cold wind, better than conversation or singing or speed.

2. aesthetically pleasing. every time i quit smoking, before i've even fully started quitting, i miss the pleasure of puffing smoke out of my mouth and watching it drift away.

3. when with a group of people, a cigarette will always be your's, that little thing that you nurse and suck and prod happily until it burns itself away to nothing. unless, of course, you're sharing, in which case it become a bonding experience. shared misery. it creates strange bonds. put ten people in a room together and they might sit around staring at each other, the walls, or their feet; the second half of them leave for a cigarette, they're talking and laughing.

4. it pisses off the girl i wanted to marry. it's spiteful and silly, i know, but i think of it every time i light up. sometimes it makes me smile, but it always hurts me more emotionally than they do physically. and of course it always hurts me more than her, because she doesn't know. so it's kinda an empty narcissistic spite.

which is pretty sad. like smoking. sigh. puff

I was a seventeen year old senior. He was a seventeen year old freshman. I did all kinds of drugs. He did all kinds of drugs. I was addicted to him. He was addicted to what he thought I was.

When he left, I started smoking cigarettes to remind me of his kisses.

every once in awhile i'll enjoy a cigarette, but i'm not really much of a smoker. however the sound of a cigarette burning is a curious thing. it sounds strangely crisp (sorta like the leaves in Autumn). i know it probably sounds crazy, i really enjoy it though.