My World for a Toke of that Beautiful Blue Smoke

I am 33 years old. This month I will hit 34, and this isn’t a big deal. There are very few constants in life, and aging is one of them. The issue that has come about is that I finally decided to quit smoking. I picked up the habit when I was 17, and put it down once for about 5 weeks. So almost 17 years of inhaling tar, smoke, carcinogens, and lots of nasty shit. They say there are over 4000 different chemicals inhaled in one cigarette. This includes pesticides, and no telling what else.

To be honest, I just don’t care. I love smoking. The feeling of the paper as you pull it from the pack, and put it to your lips, the taste of the tobacco when you inhale as you bring the flame to the unfiltered end - it is magical. The heat hits the tobacco, and you take a true puff, the nicotine rushing from your lungs to your brain at the speed of light. Nerves, and synapses, fire like artillery in Vietnam. BAM, BAM, Boom.

So what if each puff takes a bit of my life? Something this good cannot be that bad.

Why the hell did I quit then?

I am getting older, and starting to see the dollar signs of how much they cost me (14-17.00 a pack here in Oz). I can feel the lack of oxygen hitting my blood stream. The short-breathed exertions are making me feel old; the smell of a flower is gone to me. The world without the smell of ash is foreign to my adult life. I have no taste buds… everything in my palate has a bland, cardboard, additive.

This loss of the love of my life has been on going for three days - cold mother fucking turkey, Bitch!

Even though she’s the devil - I fucking miss her. The quiet moments, in the yard, the cold wind snapping at my neck as I puff upon her papered goodness, the hit of her nicotine causing a gentle relaxation in my over-active mind - she is beauty incarnate.

Nevertheless, I have cast her into the void, and I am left with this empty feeling. A hollow shell of who I once was, looming in the forefront of my mind at all times.


Fuck, I’m on the jones!