Ode to Nicotine
Give me back my cigarettes, my Marlboro Menthols, or Newports if you don’t have them, and I don’t care if they have fiberglass in the filter. I want to be banished to the outside so I can light one with my blue Bic lighter, so I can take that first great puff, and then shuffle back and forth in bliss from the nicotine choking my bronchi and alveoli. Give me back this heaven I paid seven dollars a pack to cause.
Give me back my Skoal, the cherry flavored plastic puck-like tub, or peppermint if you don’t have it, and I don’t care if I get a hole beneath my lip. I want to be chained to an empty soda can, so I can dip a pinch and spit into the opening while the flood of nicotine numbs my lips and almost makes me dizzy, so that brown syrup forms and blitzes my gums. Give me back this heaven where all the ballplayers go.
Give me back my cigars, my Don Diegos, or Partagas’s if you don’t have them, and I don’t care if my mouth rots off. I want my being to be clouded like a barbecue pit, so I can hula hoop the rings of smoke that feature a nutty taste with leathery undertones, so I can repeat this pufferfish facial impression that my cheeks make for the next hour or so. Give me back this heaven that needs to be lit up by a sheet of cedar because I can’t afford to use a hundred dollar bill yet.
Let me chew my nicotine gum.
Let me repress the abuse of a decade’s worth of cigarettes, dip, and cigars.
Let me run and play basketball in order to lose my breath.
Let me chew on mint toothpicks.
Let me suck on Blow Pops and crack my tooth, impatient to get to the bubblegum center.
Let me forget how much I miss standing outside with the rest of the smokers, sharing a bond that only we know, so I can make this beer taste better.
Give me back my cigarettes, because I want a smoke.
