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Cigarette

September 7th, 2024

I bought my first pack of Marlboro's today. I told myself it'd just be for good luck---a memento mori for me to carry around at times. Something to calm my nerves and anxiety and fidget with when I'm in trouble.

I didn't buy a lighter. I think I'd actually start smoking if I did.

Somehow I feel pretty defeated today.

At the Bar

My coworkers got drunk, and my senior began talking about polygamy and open relationships. The only girl in our coworker group kept arguing with him to convince him otherwise. They went on and on about how relationships are supposed to work.

I just sat there in a bit of silence, exchanging glances with my other coworker. Awkward.

Then my senior turned to me, and asked me to share something vulnerable.

I told him I'd never dated anyone.

What a mistake. The room went silent, and the topic was quickly changed.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing out on that'd make them act that way. Are relationships with other people so fundamental to the human experience? Is that really how it works?

Is it that someone who's never been picked out just sub-human? Someone who's never connected with another human being---can they even be considered a human being with thoughts, feelings, and emotions?

Sometimes I really wonder. Sometimes I really wonder...

Now I wonder what my coworkers think of me. What a dumb mistake opening up to the people I work with. Now they're going to judge me for it, and possibly think I'm less effective for it.

I think I've accepted my demise though. I've tried all my life to be normal. I just, I just don't make the cut.

Self-loathing

It's obvious at this point to me, that I swing up and down constantly into trenches of self-loathing and peaks of gratitude.

I don't know. I don't really understand what the next steps are, but I'm desperately trying to keep going.

My lucky pack of cigarettes are always waiting for me. Somehow, I think the idea of me just falling even deeper down the hole soothes me. There's still a ways to go on my journey in life.

Self-hatred

I think I understand what it means to smoke cigarettes now. I'll always keep my lucky cigarettes on me. It's my good luck charm.

When I bought them, the cashier asked for identification. He scanned the card. I told him I wanted a pack of "Melboros," but it's a good thing I don't speak clearly, so he knew I was talking about "Marlboros." I pointed to the Gold Standard Original pack at the top-left, and he grabbed them.

I paid my fifteen dollars and got my pack of cigarettes. He looked me in the eye---maybe he thought I looked too young and happy to be buying cigarettes. He told me have a good day. I told him you too and walked out.

I wonder how many lives you ruin working a job like that. Handing out cigarettes to young twenty-something year olds and fucking them up. Maybe, for a split second, I felt his moral conscience at play there. Maybe he regretted giving cigarettes to the baby-faced twenty-something year old.

I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining that---imagining that the random gas station attendant actually cared enough about me to think twice about giving me the cigarettes.

I don't plan on smoking them. But, maybe if things go really bad, maybe then. It's my out, just in case things go really wrong.