Nicotine

I don’t need it. I mean to say, I want to not need it, or feel like I do. I would not need it if I didn’t indulge for more than a day or two.

They say the cravings last most strongly then, and then wean off like like a breastfeeding infant. That white milky smoke, hot in my mouth, it almost burns the lungs to think of it now. It is not entirely unpleasant, but I would not call it joyful.

Somber moments alone, bored and disgruntled. My lighter clicks, leaving a grey trail on my thumb, the sound of its flame burning, about to be numb. It keeps me up at night, I wake up 4 or 5 times as I try to rest, and if I had to guess, it keeps up asleep under the rising sun. I missed any more than an hour of good REM sleep, I hear you need that to process in dreams. Vivid nightmares I wake up from many times each eve, I would roll over and swallow my dreams, easily accessible nicotine with every flavor mint, berries, and cream.

I first felt it after a year and a half, I was taken to the hospital for my lungs struggling in class. In orchestra and track I could hardly keep up, and made it a point to push til I dropped. The severity I doubted, never in need, I flouted. My red face, sweat, and wheezing rise and fall of my chest convinced better than my sorry pleading and duress. I was lying in bed, unable to move, as I am to do of late, and coughed a familiar cough but iron coated my palette. No blood yet, I could close my eyes and see my bronchi struggle. Sympathy for the part of my body I scorned, I threw my vape in the trash, upset and unsurprised.

Not 2 hours later I dug it up like a raccoon, and inhaled the vapor as if none could see me do. I felt myself looking and I would not lie to her too. I know God saw, He had made me this way. For some reason, on and on for three days, sneaking a head rush as if I would judge, acting so would keep my want minimum. Back to cigarettes, I seemed to be more disgusted by those, tossing away whole packs after a single smoke. The smell is what got me, how it lingers on my clothes, I could taste it from my breath even after hours had passed. The stench follows me like obscene incense, but it clears the vile thoughts that swirl like toxins in my frontal lobe.

Imaginary circumstances of unimaginable violence, I lay in bed and question my innocence. My sanity slipping, I know I’m a Christian, I would love my neighbor even as I killed them. Forgiven by God and loved by Jesus, maybe I should just smoke and ignore my bereavement. Madness, poverty, hurting people to survive, hurting people to hurt people so they know you’ll survive. The other? The magnanimous other, imagined and projected upon, a hurt to oneself at a distance to steal back some wealth. The sanctuary of knowledge and riches in breath, lost to those whose stomach growls louder and louder, bones grow weaker, and addictions stronger.

I wish not any pain on another, and cigarettes let me self-flagellate if I must, the violence done unto others a smell of disgust. Better than hard drugs or porn, mindless consumerism and violence, speaking strictly for myself. How badly must I want to escape my conditions, to kill another or light up a fag, depending who you ask.