What if my only options are to be either stable and contented but never have anything interesting to write about or terrifically depressed and highly prolific?
pâro
n. the feeling that no matter what you do is always somehow wrong—that any attempt to make your way comfortably through the world will only end up crossing some invisible taboo—as if there’s some obvious way forward that everybody else can see but you, each of them leaning back in their chair and calling out helpfully, colder, colder, colder.
anatomy of a smoker
I don’t smoke. The idea of falling prisoner to any sort of vice does a good enough job to steer me away. Because what other show of weakness more glaring than trembling hands and tar stained fingers.
And yet, the act in itself never fails to fascinate me. I could watch someone smoke endlessly—the way their brows crease and their shoulders curl as flame meets the open end of a cigarette. Perhaps it’s the way relief glazes over their eyes as if I’ve caught a few precious seconds of what they would look like had they not known the existence of pain. Or how their chests rise to welcome the warmth only a smoke could provide. The sort of warmth that could only counter the sort of winter their hearts weather. Of if they fancy blackened lungs to match the color of their souls. Their spirits charred by the same fire from the bridges they had burned along the way. Because they say when there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire. Perhaps it’s the personifying of a lover they once knew. That one thing you keep doing over and over even if it’s bad for you. That one thing you keep going back to even if it’s going to kill you.
It may do some good to at least give meaning to why you’re reaching for that pack. Because though it may be printed menthol, all you’re going to taste is deterioration. And I bet it’ll taste glorious as a smooth little cloud exits those perfectly puckered lips.
