What Do I Want?

I want a pack of cigarettes. 

I want to breathe in the toxins we were warned about

as children in health class. I want to feel 

the nicotine handcuff me, bind me to it’s command, 

so I’ll know it wasn’t all a lie; something they taught us 

in those dreary classrooms was true.

I want to gasp for air and feel 

my body tighten 

when I try to laugh. I want to smell like smoke, 

like dread, like everything 

I promised I’d never be. 

I’ll smoke every one 

of those fatal comforts, fill myself 

with heavy, dirty air, so that I can never float away 

again. The children will pass 

me, coughing, running 

away from the dark clouds that surround me

before the clouds suffocate them too. 

When my life has gone 

to ashes and I’ve been reduced

to a pile of burning tobacco,

I will gasp for the air, for the clarity 

I once had. I will regret it all. I will feel 

nothing 

but remorse for myself, for my mistakes. 

Only when I take my last breath

will I finally feel 

something. 

Will I

finally

feel 

something?