Nicotine

The legal drug;

Socially acceptable and unacceptable.

We suck down death like air ignoring the ooze seeping into lungs

And turning them as black as night

With sticky tar and inescapable breathlessness.

I had this friend once;

He was a mad man with a Mohawk who never left the house without Dusty the Knuckleduster.

He used to light up and on the first exhale say,

‘That’s good cancer.’

He would order one pack of cancer sticks at the shop.

He never inhaled with the arrogance of youth,

But with the sickening realism of a man who had seen too much too young.

Smokers are often melancholy souls.

I’ve found that those of us who culminate in smoking areas,

Are often the most interesting creatures.

People who have happy and or uneventful lives,

Don’t smoke.

It’s the realists you find with the cigarettes in their hands.

The unashamedly hardened by life,

Screwed up screw ups.

Tattooed, pierced and scarred.

Unafraid that any breath could be their last because with every inhale of death,

They face a closer end than the girl at the bar in the pink,

Whose biggest problem doesn’t hit your top 200.

They have careful smiles that seem carefree but tell one thousand lies.

They have faces that tell stories

And stories that inspire.

They have been the wanderers,

Philanthropists and insomniacs.

They’re writers, artists,

Musicians and philosophers.

They can talk about the the very intricacies of the universe in the time it takes to roll a cigarette,

But they are,

Damaged.

It is rare that one without a touch of melancholy in their souls,

Inhales willingly,

A speedy death.