I like the feel of smoke in my lungs. It’s heavy and light at the same time. Just like the conversations that are best had through a cloud the stuff. I like the filter between my lips, and I like the sound a lighter makes when it’s lit. Most of all I like the dizzy feeling I get when I take too big of a drag on too small of a breath. I like to smoke.

Sometimes I wish I could wear bright red lipstick. I had a friend who used to wear it. She would always leave smudges of burgundy around the filter of my cigarette. Some days it would stain my fingers where I held it. I miss her and her burgundy lips. It was almost poetic to watch smoke flow through them. Often it was poetry as she spoke through the smoke. She’s long gone now, off to better things and a better life. I still have the lighter she gave me months ago, and there’s still a bowl full of smeared filters sitting out on the porch where we would sit.
Some things are best when shared with friends. Cigarettes can be one of those things. Sometimes though, it’s nice to sit all alone and light one up; especially in the dark with only a sliver of light so you can see the smoke gathering around the ceiling. Smoking inside is a luxury that I rarely get to enjoy, but when I do it feels almost naughty, like I’m doing something I shouldn’t even though I only smoke where I’m allowed.

I know that my habit is unhealthy; that it could kill me someday. The problem is I’m full of emotions and teenage angst and life’s too short to hold back. I watch these people in their 50’s sitting outside the building they’ve worked in for 30 years with a cigarette sitting between their fingers. I watch them bring it to their lips with shaking hands and blow out a cloud of smoke not nearly as grey as the deadness in their eyes. I tell myself that I’ll never be like that. I could never be like that, because I’m going places and there are people expecting me there. I still have hope.

Hope is what makes life colorful and bright. I watch my friends talking about their lives, laughing as smoke leaks out of their lungs and into the air to take their dreams and float away with them. I know that the band they’re planning is never going to be famous, and I know that none of them will ever leave our dead-end little town, at least not for very long. What I do know is that there will always be a place for each and every one of us in this little circle where we pass around our lighters and whine about how many stogies we bum to our broke friends.
The world likes to say that material things are temporary and in the end it’s the people around us that really dictate who we are and how happy our life is. Material things burn and turn to ash that we flick into crude disks of clay that we made in art class and have the audacity to call ashtrays. People make us laugh and make us cry. They blow smoke in our faces and call us things they would never say in front of their mothers. In the end though, it is the people that clean up the ash that spills over the edge of the tray that make us smile. They are the ones who bum us a smoke when we’re out but really need one because we’re fighting with someone who’s important to us. So maybe the world is right, and it is the people that matter, but what would those people be without the material things that define them?


My favorite sweatshirt has burn-holes in the sleeves. I always smell like a combination of roses and smoke, and I like to wear a bandanna around my head in an attempt to look like a pin-up model. I always wear jeans and a black leather jacket with a secret pocket where I keep my pack of cigarettes so I don’t get caught with them again. My lighter stays in the right front pocket of that jacket, and I haven’t worn socks that match in five years. If you were to ask someone about me that is what they’d say. Maybe, if you’re lucky, they’d tell you that I always have a cigarette for a friend that needs one, and a listening ear for when they need that even more. In the end though, it’s my habits that they notice, the things about me that repeat.

Even when things are good for me my personality is always changing. There’s never a moment when I’m feeling the same as the one before, and because of that I’m rarely predictable. If someone were to give me a label it wouldn’t say anything about how hard I try to be there for the people who need me. It wouldn’t be protector or lover or fighter. My label would read “Smoker” or, “Wearer of a leather jacket” It would talk about how my socks never match or how I hate wearing shoes. My label would tell you that I like to chew mint gum, or that I always have just enough money in my pocket. It would be material things that define me, and I can’t say that I mind so much.

I’m not ashamed of being identified with cigarettes. Cigarettes bring comfort to a desperate person, and they’re enjoyable no matter the time of day. Some people only smoke when they drink, and they drink to have fun. Age old friends have a smoke over conversation, and business deals are celebrated by a cigar and a fine glass of brandy. Just because cigarettes are a material thing doesn’t mean they don’t go hand in hand with happiness. They give comfort to the people who have long run out of hope, and need a cigarette to get them through the day. They help the young kids find a group to stand beside. So what if they’ll kill us someday? They were part of what made life worth living. That’s how I want to be remembered. I want to know that I gave someone something to look forward to and live for. I wouldn’t mind being labeled a cigarette.