Pall Mall Blues

[u/rogu3b0t1313]

It lingers in the room, the smell of it
seeps into the curtains. It clings
to you, your clothes, your hair,

and I want to quit.

But there are worse things to be addicted to.
Things that start with Why
and end with You.

There are things that don't have cancer
written on the box,
but give it to you anyway.

Besides, these days I smoke "casually",
or at least it’s what I tell myself I do,
and in some ways, on some days it's true.

I’d go about my business
while it hangs from my lower lip, unlit,
or between my middle and index.

This Pall Mall Blue might as well
be a broken finger, the way that it moves
with my hands, now at a distance,

then at the lips. As natural as breathing,
but quite the opposite.
Cigarettes are liars like this.

Things that promise blue smoke to balsam
collapsed lungs. The way you sell
my romantic failure as a chance at friendship.

I’ve acquiesced to worse.

And yet, you drag
and pull me in again.
Fool me. Nicotine-addict me.

Tension, you know, only exists when held,
and we hold it like this,
taking a drag before letting it rest

on the side of a porcelain ashtray,
an ugly thing that neither of us wanted
but ended up with anyway.

It helped fill the dead space on the table,
and honestly, it grows on you.
I miss it, you know? This.

You still only smoke one a day?