Hello, look, here I am back on the Internet!
Obviously, I've been pretty busy, but I've been writing a lot, just not here. You may or may not be interested in checking things out on Autostraddle or The Eagle.
This actually is an abridged version of a piece I did for my creative writing class. Also it's only the first half because shit's just too long.
I was trying to figure out why I smoked.
--
Obviously, I've been pretty busy, but I've been writing a lot, just not here. You may or may not be interested in checking things out on Autostraddle or The Eagle.
This actually is an abridged version of a piece I did for my creative writing class. Also it's only the first half because shit's just too long.
I was trying to figure out why I smoked.
--
Bugler Tobacco
"I never thought this would be us, never thought this would be me, you know? I mean, it's whatever though. Do you have a light? I left mine upstairs.Thanks."
What the hell is going on? I wonder. I'm not wearing shoes, it's 5:57 a.m., and we're waiting outside the McDonald's because it doesn't open til 6.
"Brandon, roll me one? You can use my tobacco."
Marlboro Golds
My parents were smokers when I was younger, and a little smoke went a long way in our small Manhattan apartment. It crept out of the kitchen, where my parents lit Marlboros on the stove. It sneaked around the corner into the living room and settled in the fabric of the couch, where I would lay whining, "Paaaaa, how many more puffs before we can go to the paaaaark?"
Once I burned myself reaching out, fascinated, to touch the ember glowing orange on the end of my dad's cigarette while he knelt down to button my jacket.
My parents were smokers when I was younger, and a little smoke went a long way in our small Manhattan apartment. It crept out of the kitchen, where my parents lit Marlboros on the stove. It sneaked around the corner into the living room and settled in the fabric of the couch, where I would lay whining, "Paaaaa, how many more puffs before we can go to the paaaaark?"
Once I burned myself reaching out, fascinated, to touch the ember glowing orange on the end of my dad's cigarette while he knelt down to button my jacket.
I begged and pleaded and threw the occasional tantrum, and for my thirteenth birthday, they quit.
Camel Lights
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it is also the truest form of rebellion, or that's what you can be tricked into thinking.
The summer of my sixteen, I learned to sneak and smoke and not get caught, because smoking is an art form of the young and stupid. The only girl I'd ever loved or loved since, even the way you love at sixteen, had gone across the sea to a place where you could smoke at our age. And she did, so I did, because I thought it romantic. I wanted to feel close. She bought a pack of Camel Lights. I followed suit. I wanted to feel close.
Late summer nights led to acrobatics, contorting my body to fit out my window, to bare feet on my roof. Coughing and sputtering like a 16-year-old with a cigarette does, I stood against my chimney, sharing secrets with the sleepy silhouettes of Clay Street and watching the cars pass pass pass through the gas station down the block.
Marlboro Reds
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it is also the truest form of rebellion, or that's what you can be tricked into thinking.
The summer of my sixteen, I learned to sneak and smoke and not get caught, because smoking is an art form of the young and stupid. The only girl I'd ever loved or loved since, even the way you love at sixteen, had gone across the sea to a place where you could smoke at our age. And she did, so I did, because I thought it romantic. I wanted to feel close. She bought a pack of Camel Lights. I followed suit. I wanted to feel close.
Late summer nights led to acrobatics, contorting my body to fit out my window, to bare feet on my roof. Coughing and sputtering like a 16-year-old with a cigarette does, I stood against my chimney, sharing secrets with the sleepy silhouettes of Clay Street and watching the cars pass pass pass through the gas station down the block.
Marlboro Reds
They slouched against walls in the faculty parking lot, those kids. They chain smoked Marlboro Reds because they were cheap and gave you a really nice headbuzz, or that's what they told me when leaving school late after leaving class on time, they offered me a Red.
For the most part though, that wasn't us, my friends and I. We were the good kids. We were always in class, and when we weren't in class, we were in the school. Honors courses, extra curricular activities, and early applications to college marked us.
For the most part though, that wasn't us, my friends and I. We were the good kids. We were always in class, and when we weren't in class, we were in the school. Honors courses, extra curricular activities, and early applications to college marked us.
And that was tiring.
Acing tests, we ducked out early to trade drags in ventilated bathroom stalls or, on the weekends, abandoned playgrounds. And while the cool kids were getting drunk in their parents' empty houses on Friday nights, our weekend cruises around town were incomplete without a stop at the convenience store to pick up a pack (requested in a gruff voice, as I thought one needed to sound tough to buy cigarettes) before heading down to the river to kill a pack and talk all night.
Smoke creeping into our lungs, we felt a pulsating rebellion moving through the chambers of our hearts, into our bodies, to our fingertips, still holding our cigarettes. We left high school desperate for change, but we were unsure if it was a change of scenery or a change in us.
Camel No. 9s
Having shaken the gruffness from my voice and the illegality from my age, I began to purchase Camel No. 9s. Each drag was unapologetic hometown nostalgia, every pack deceiving me into a fond re-creation of my high school experience. I disregarded ridicule or loneliness, favoring the last memories of my friends, an after-prom weekend at the Jersey Shore. We were sober still (kind of), and in our sweatshirts we beckoned the dawn and waited for our moments to become memories.
In college, packs once split among friends became my own. Piling up like bricks, instead of shutting us out, they walled us in with each other on smoke breaks, bumming one here and there, no big deal, got a light?
Parliament Lights
I could call it a social thing.
I could call it something I only do when I'm drunk.
I could call it a stress-relieving tactic.
I could call it something to do with my hands.
Acing tests, we ducked out early to trade drags in ventilated bathroom stalls or, on the weekends, abandoned playgrounds. And while the cool kids were getting drunk in their parents' empty houses on Friday nights, our weekend cruises around town were incomplete without a stop at the convenience store to pick up a pack (requested in a gruff voice, as I thought one needed to sound tough to buy cigarettes) before heading down to the river to kill a pack and talk all night.
Smoke creeping into our lungs, we felt a pulsating rebellion moving through the chambers of our hearts, into our bodies, to our fingertips, still holding our cigarettes. We left high school desperate for change, but we were unsure if it was a change of scenery or a change in us.
Camel No. 9s
Having shaken the gruffness from my voice and the illegality from my age, I began to purchase Camel No. 9s. Each drag was unapologetic hometown nostalgia, every pack deceiving me into a fond re-creation of my high school experience. I disregarded ridicule or loneliness, favoring the last memories of my friends, an after-prom weekend at the Jersey Shore. We were sober still (kind of), and in our sweatshirts we beckoned the dawn and waited for our moments to become memories.
In college, packs once split among friends became my own. Piling up like bricks, instead of shutting us out, they walled us in with each other on smoke breaks, bumming one here and there, no big deal, got a light?
Parliament Lights
I could call it a social thing.
I could call it something I only do when I'm drunk.
I could call it a stress-relieving tactic.
I could call it something to do with my hands.
I could, and I have, but with a cigarette behind my ear at all times and smoke breaks working their way into my walks between classes, I finally have to admit it:
I'm a smoker.
I'm a smoker.
