I'm beginning to think cigarettes smell good. A detestable show of out-of-check consumerism, it also brings to me the ideas of a faceless underbelly of uncontrollable addicts and degeneracy. The idea of cigarettes had been ingrained into me. A motto of the American girl scouts I suppose, to stay away from drugs at all costs, worked its way into my overactive psyche. 

A representation of psychological decline by relating the purpose of humanity to productivity. 

So in a sense, the idea of the cig leads to a choice of life and death. A decision with a clear recourse to enact harm for the instant gratification of a brief feeling. Is that not then to be human? But to have the choice to do until to die, or is it the essence of a choice being ripped away from us unless a collective forms an opinion? Is individually an oblivion? Should it be? -elaborate

The usual images that form when one says “trying a cigarette for the first time” is a debaucherous mix of youth and strategic peer pressure, this does little to define my experience. Hanging out with a friend of a friend on my birthday, while we drink alcohol in an old church where they lived became a moment of melancholic comradery. My friend, asleep on an unusual type of gothic couch, who had brought me there, was passed out leaving me with an interesting character that I had not previously known. If you had known me back in high school, you’d know I was the type of person that seemed to get along well with anyone, so it wasn’t a surprise when the two tipsy insomniacs found themselves getting along. The acquaintance showed themselves to me with a cryptic hospitality and gave a glimpse into a kind of life that I will always associate as a true type of living though I could never live that way myself. I would not be surprised if they remembered me, but I can never forget the moment of calm contemplation that was given to me that night before my interpersonal anxieties manifested in my adulthood. It was a step outside and a shared cigarette when they asked me if I would like one. There was no pressure, or thought, just a moment of simple connection that didn’t matter at all, but it still often serves as a reminder of my own humanity.

Cigarettes remind me of who I am, being able to decline, something unneeded, reminding me that being out of a system doesn't always mean being left out of something. But alas, An ode to those who do smoke: this would be the same. The ideal is not whether or not to partake it's only the around, the before, the after. The thoughts of every time you think of something other than a cigarette. The times you find connections with an absence you don't know you are having. I envy you. Each time you arise for your smoke break at work you are reminded of the cigarette and in turn, without knowing it, you are reminded of the absence of it. Each time, you are paying for it, you are paying for that absence with a type of humanity that I could never achieve, a type I would never want, but I will gaze upon it. This idea of course works for anything and everything. The way that each of us experiences different things in our lives we build upon this remembrance of absence. Building our singular humanity through these things in a way, accidentally that no one could understand. And yet, we envy what we could never want to be. Envy a love, a connection, and experience that builds humanity in its absence. 

Cigarettes are curious, yet well known, easy to understand. As of this time who does not know of the impacts of a cigarette? The health, the addiction, the smell. I would detest the smell, turn my nose up, and even cough at its strong, particular odor. What has changed? Has my mind been thinking things without me knowing? To the point where I can believe that being in a prison with an idea of choice is being truly human, and to that end make something so detestable and foul from my beginnings to not only signal individual death but also the end of all empathy, to that, making cigarettes smell good.