Take Me 'Higher'

Posted by leavingxnostalgia on 2008/2/5 22:32:38 (50 reads)
I really am bored this midnight. So, I sneaked four sticks of Marlboro Lights and a lighter out from Dad’s pants, grabbed my mp4 and half-charged cell phone then went out to look for a dark and cozy place to puff my lungs out.

Call it time killing. Chilling (and yes there were fogs!), I lighted one stick and covered the others behind my thin shirt. It was freezing; it chills me to the bone. Good thing I have fire in my mouth, nothing to worry about, I’m burning, sweating.

Puff. Puff. Puff.

My parents did not even tell me not to smoke, no words of warning or anything. And when one day I asked them if I could smoke, just once to feed my curiosity, they said yes. I was 14 back then. I tried. It feels like heaven, now I got the idea why they always smoke, it is because of the odd feeling of being very light and high and all. That is the point I have decided I should try it some other time, some other when my mom’s not around.

Puff. Puff.

My mom and dad were chain smokers. Mom prefers Winston; my Dad puffs Marlboro. And, I smoke both Winston and Marlboro, depends on the availability, of course. I am not after the brand, honestly, but the unexplainable sensation it brings; whenever I smoke, I feel very overexcited and numb and carefree and very light and oh-so-high and as if it was a perpetual bliss, it was messiah, a guilty pleasure. I never do this just to be “in”. That’s stupid. I smoke for my personal gains, not for the tobacco firms nor for the drunkard next-door. As Frank Lloyd Tiongson of Phil. Collegian quoted “The product of tobacco industry, is not the cigarette, but the smoker.” which is unquestionable.

However, behind every packet of cigarettes prevails the real score: no single brand of cigarette can turn back time, worse, lung diseases and complications. I have understood it very well that smoking can lead to several ailments of the heart and lungs, and the fact that smoking brings no good is apparently lucid to me.

Puff.

It is with no doubt that, if I could give you 10 reasons why to smoke, you can counter me with your 10,000 reasons why to quit smoking. I have not experienced withdrawal syndrome since the start of my puff craving, that is why I am trying hard not to perceive cigarettes as an escapist’s mean of going higher. I know I can make it coz I have lived many years cigar-independently.

It was a Saturday afternoon, but still nostalgia punctuates my yearning for a single puff. See, I have survived many hours without it, not until the devil in me shouts for a stick of Marlboro or Winston, or just anything.

PS. There was an ongoing burial at this moment. Happy trip to Randy Fortuno, our neighbor, who have died because of stomach ailment at the young age of 17. Though we are not the shoulder-to-shoulder friends and we merely see each other, you have left me a lesson, that is to appreciate life. And that, I think, is a compelling reason to quit smoking. See you. You’ll be remembered.