a lot of people ask me why i smoke. it’s not that i want to be cool or i want “street cred”. it’s the feeling of numbness i’ve wanted to burn out of my life since the beginning. it’s the feeling of near suffocation. the feeling the smoke or vapor leaves behind in my lungs and in the back of my throat. it’s the feeling of being able to feel something that i’m so addicted to. i’m not addicted to nicotine or cannabis. i’m addicted to the feeling it’s leaves behind on my soul.

I listened to your words like they were the rush of nicotine I crave.

I listened to you as you played victim to your own crimes.

Your crimes against me.

Cheated and bruised I still relied on you.

My reliance on you was like my cigarette addiction.

I craved you, I wanted you, sometimes needed you, but in the end, you were cancer in my lungs just like the smoke.

Soon enough you broke, under the pressure of cleaning up the mess you made.

The mess you had made of me.

You left pieces of me scattered throughout the yard of an old house where the memories of your lips on my skin lie.

The memories of the promises you shattered while you left bruises on my heart and skin.

Love is like nicotine.

Once you've tried it once, you can't get enough.
You say you can live without it.
But you know you're lying to yourself.

That's why heartbreak physically hurts.
The way withdrawals physically hurt.
It makes you sick to your stomach.

You say it's the last time.
But it's not.
It's the final act, for now.

You can try to take a long break from it.
But it always comes slithering back.
Like a shadow you can't hide from.

You can't stop thinking about it.
You sit through your normal life.
Thinking about when your next fix is.

It fills your lungs and makes you feel good.
But shortly after you feel it in your stomach.
Like a poison slowly killing you.

Nicotine is like love.

~S.C.Kelley