I only smoke when I’m overseas.
It’s a once-in-a-year affair, if that.
An affair that will slowly strangle my lungs,
and literally squeeze the life out of me.
I don’t really know why.
Maybe I like the smell.
Maybe I like the ritual.
Maybe I should stop.
I should definitely stop.
I know it’s bad.
Smoking is bad.
Duh.
The smell reminds me of my childhood.
Whilst my childhood was not all rainbows and sunshine, I still like the smoky stroll down memory lane.
The rediscovery of familiar, forgotten feelings that satisfy a deep curiosity within me.
I think this trip down memory lane will not harm me,
this self-imposed rule of only smoking overeseas will save me,
but it could be a gateway to something worse, something permanent.
I think I am smarter, stronger than this ancient addiction that has plagued millions of people since the dawn of time.
I am not.
At home, 2004
A faded memory of a smell lingers in this space,
but I’m not old enough to recognize the source.
I sit in the backyard, my trusty furry companion by my side.
We huddle together, hand in paw in what’s left of the day,
stewing in the aftermath of a smell that’s long passed.
It seems to follow me no matter where I go.
It is here on the backyard bench.
It is there in the back seat of the family car, on the ride home from school.
It is in the back room of the restaurant, where I do my homework.
It is there on my father’s faded charcoal leather jacket.
It is there in my parents’ bathroom when times are tough.
It follows me everywhere like a second dog, but one I do not want.
And I have learned to like it.
Or I have learned to live with it.
I’m not quite sure to be honest.
But now it has become intertwined with my childhood memories.
I cannot seperate them,
as hard as I try.
At the restaurant, 2008
As a restaurant offspring, I was no stranger to
smokey alleyways filled with tired chefs,
chaotic kitchen battlefields,
swarming restaurant fronts,
big egos and even bigger screaming matches,
surrounded by utter whirlwinds of complete chaos,
only to be broken by moments of smoking.
Intermission of the smokers, I liked to call it.
I would watch them from the back room,
crowded together in the back alley after a long grueling shift,
enveloped in a thick layers of smoke.
A calm after the storm.
Blank stares,
defeated postures.
dark silhouettes leaning on the comfort of hard bricks walls,
heads down, hunched over the gutters.
A little tribe gathered in the dark alley at midnight.
Nonsensical chatter,
astute insights that left me pondering for weeks.
To me, it seemed that, for some of them, the smoke break was the highlight of their nights.
Sad but a little romantic
in it’s own fucked up kind of way.
I promised myself,
right there,
right then,
that my happiness would never be tied to that tiny little thing.
In Tokyo, 2024
I’m trying to flip the matchbox in between my fingers but to no avail.
It falls flat on the wooden table in front of me.
GRANDFATHERS LISTENING BAR, reads the cardboard.
Wisps of grey drift into my sightlines from all around me.
Decades of indoor smoke have slowly penetrated every object in this little establishment.
The smell is enticing, the memories of my youth even moreso.
Tucked away in the corner of this dim basement bar, I glance
at the unfamilar faces around me. Including the immediate
less-strange strangers sitting at my table.
Everyone is buzzing with excitement, engaged with the act of stripping away the label of stranger.
Keen to connect on so many levels, to find common ground.
I don’t have much to say.
Unsurprising.
So I mostly keep quiet, and stare at the seemlying grumpy waiter stationed by the entrance.
I wonder how others perceive me.
As I wash down my thoughts,
the tinkling of chatter fill the air above me,
swaying along with the electric buzz of the jazz.
The hum of the speaker’s bass envelop me in a fuzzy feeling,
like a decade-old blanket scratchy with age.
Pulling a match from the row of tiny red heads, I flick it along the coarse back of the matchbook.
A burst of flame and smoke materialize.
Distance memories slip in and out of my vacant head, as I indulge in the
familiar warmth of the past.
Tucked away memories that seem to fold back into my mind
at the slightest scent of smoke.
The glowing tip floating at the end of my lips heaves in and out of existence.
An exhale of exhaust spews into the space in front of me.
It cradles me gently like a newborn, whilsts erroding me from inside.
I watch the way it splits apart in the air,
dancing,
floating,
ascending,
softly climbing toward the sky,
taking my thoughts along with it.
The cigarette barely hangs off the skin of my lips, ready to jump into
the abyss at a moment’s notice.
Retired orange butts slump over in a tin tray.
A flickering amber glow caresses the undercarriage of our faces,
Dimly lit, engaged in storytelling.
Strangers for not much longer, I think,
the flow of conversation carrying us down into the black of night.
In the black of night, 2024
It’s late, far too late for my sleep-deprived, delicate little body.
I crave the warm embrace of my bed,
to sink into the depth of slumber.
Little faint stars hang over me in the sky like cosmic fruit,
ripe for the picking.
I don’t know where we are.
Somewhere in Shibuya, I think.
I don’t know what we’re talking about.
Someone’s love life, I think.
It doesn’t really matter.
I like it here among the haze of smoke.
The sense of belonging to a small tribe.
This old companion will slowly kill me if I indulge too long.
Maybe I don’t like the act of it.
Maybe I just like being part of something small but bigger than
just myself.
This vague feeling of something.
But I don’t need cigarettes to feel this.