i was a child my father told me that every cigarette you smoked took five minutes off your life. i still remember my first — a lit belmont shoved between my parted lips mid-protest with a snide remark about how strange it was that i was thirteen and had never smoked — “five minutes,” i thought. i could sacrifice five minutes. within a year, five turned to ten and ten turned to thousands and, with every inhale, i thought, “five more minutes.” no longer a sacrifice, but a comfort; an inevitability. four years later, waking up in an unfamiliar bed in an east side motel, my throat raw, my body slick with cold sweat, tongue still bitter from cognac i couldn’t remember drinking, i’d lie awake and wonder how many more minutes had been taken from me, and whether i’d given them willingly. the following years pass in a haze, bestowing more leaden weights upon the shame that leaves me broken on the bathroom floor, knees bruised and bloodied. my lungs are black and my chest feels empty and i wonder if any of it ever mattered, and what, or who, it was that took the most from me. deep down, i know i gave it all willingly.