November 29, 2004
shiny pants
Folks who are better than I am, folks like Florette, can resist the lure of the divine smoky smoky. Miss Dotty, who believes that things called “divine” can’t be all bad, has done such a good job of resisting said lure.
I bought a package of this sweet drug on or about November 16. That’s twenty drug sticks, for the uninitiated. Florette and I were having our girls’ night on the 18th. I smoked that night. Florette did not. Smart woman. Maybe four or five cigarettes. (Cigareetes, to those fans of the Western genre.) Which makes approximately twelve cigarettes left, if you add in the ones that I had on day 16 and 17 of November.
From day 18 November to day November 29 I have smoked only twelve sticks of smoky joy. Today was my last opportunity to partake. I didn’t really want it, but the box said, “Dotty, it’s what the cool kids do. You’ve always wanted to be a cool kid, right? Now you can be. Do it. It’s okay. You’ll be rockin’.”
And I saw my fingers, unstained by nicotine, lift one glorious and final cigarette to my drug free (hey, work with me here) lips. Fire was applied to this instrument of sin. The flame disappeared; the world was lit only by the embers of burning, nefarious desire. A blue liquid smoke, a thin curl of withdrawal, a wisp of scent that will some day cause me to feel weak, close my eyes, and say, “Oh yes. I want that again.”
An inhalation brings reality softly back. It is never the way I remembered it. It’s always a little rougher. It always lacks some of the mystique that it had when I was learning its secrets, when the flame igniting my bad habit seemed more passionately urgent than dutifully functional. It takes more and more tastes to remember what felt so good.
Just as I’m ready to walk away, just as I feel my heart break with the knowledge that I’ve romanticized an impossibility, just then is when it happens.
A breath that reaches to the tips of my fingers and brings with it the caress of a nearly forgotten joy. Sensations ascend up my arms like dolphins jumping and diving, over my shoulders, and cease at the base of my neck. A sleepy, languorous, slow motion calm banishes all thoughts of quitting this relationship.
And then, when that weak, warm feeling rolls over me and fades, I don’t want my cigarette anymore. The divinity of the divine smoky smoky is exposed. If only I can remember that feeling…that feeling when the sweetness fades and I only know the smell of smoke in my hair and on my hands. The smoke calls to me with a tarnished silver tongue.
Bastard.
So the cigarettes are gone. Consumed by my likely still pink lungs. And the backyard by the fire pit is sprinkled with half cigarettes that I threw away when I didn’t want them anymore.
I feel so cheap. So blind to all the information warning me, warning me of the allure of smoking. And here I am, used. A tobacco whore. I’m ashamed of myself.
I, of all people, should know better. I love textiles. Why didn’t it occur to me that this cigarette nonsense was trashy and worthless?
Look at that. Shiny pants. The box wears shiny pants. What kind of worthy beau would wear shiny pants and misspell Kamel? And “red lights”? Who the hell wants those?
A fool for love! Never, ever again!
But, just in case, when’s the next girls’ night?
Posted by dotty at November 29, 2004 08:30 PM