Sigh...I don't smoke. It's a horrible habit. But sometimes, when I'm honest with myself, I wish I did. In this day and age, if you told somebody that they wouldn't understand. But in years past they knew what I know. The allure. The glamour. How something so insignificant can change everything surrounding it completely. Ah...but we know so much better these days.
People don't stop to appreciate the beauty for what it is. The crack and fizzle of the match or the flick of the lighter. The glow. I'm always mezmorized as the smoke cheerfully spills upward, laughing in the face of gravity. The way it's held - there are hundreds of ways to hold a cigarette, all of them the same. Nonchalance, with an air of superiority. As if you've suddenly evolved the second your lips tasted the death wrapped in white. You're not just glancing beyond the veil, you draw it inside you, pouring it in. The unwilling guest that begs to leave the trap of your lungs. The sigh, the cough, the curse - these are it's escape. Slowly dripping from your lips it continues it's interrupted flight. The twist and turns, expanding and twirling. Dancing on invisible stairs circling around you. Finally, the gentle lingering good-bye. And then there's the smell - wonderfully bitter and dark, yet ultimately comforting, as narrowly escaped misfortune so often is. Clinging to every surface without discrimination. Slow death is so beautiful in it's earliest form. It's a pity really...
