So you did it again, after all these weeks. You thought you were through. You told yourself you were, in so many words, in so many ways, so many times. As if repetition created truth and illusion bred reality. Yet the world felt perfect again the moment you inhaled, you could breathe a little easier, could live a bit longer with yourself and who you'd become, could imagine a different time and could almost feel the wind of a different place raising the hair on the back of your neck and the goosebumps on your arms. You exhaled.
You turned your head so the smell wouldn't soak completely into your hair, you'd forgotten how the smoke smell stayed and stayed and stayed, especially on your hair, on your hands, in your mouth, on your yellowing teeth and rotting gums, in your blackened lungs, on your blackening heart. You inhaled. The trees looked friendlier for a second. You exhaled.
You left guilt for another time, a better time, perhaps when you could get him out of your mind, his smile, his laugh imprinted in your brain, although you didn't want it there. Had never wanted it there. You had more important things for that space in your head that he now occupied. You had watched your carefully constructed card-house plans fall to pieces the second he smiled at you.
And of course it was too late now. You inhaled. Lowered your hand to hide the object of your shame, the faint glow of the embers pulsing with the wind like a heart. Like your heart as you thought about his kindness, his intensity, his laugh. You exhaled.
You could almost see him now, could imagine him besides you, a cigarette ever dangling from his mouth, the white of the paper pristine against the black of his full beard, so strange on a face so young. He looked much older, which was partly why you couldn't resist the inevitable attraction. You inhaled.
