how do you quit?
"how do you quit?"
i asked,
sunk in the hammock,
shaking with the trees.
my good friend paused.
to ask a smoker how to quit
is to ask a blind man for directions;
they know the way, but have never seen it.
my good friend, though,
she tries her best, but
a million new years have come and gone
and she still hasn't kicked the habit.
"to quit," she says,
after a pause i found almost deficient,
"you have to give yourself something you've always wanted
but never let yourself have.
say, as a kid, you always wanted
your own American Girl;
you go out there and buy it--
brush its hair, build it a dollhouse,
give it a name,
a pet,
a backstory,
maybe her parents died in a great big house fire,
maybe her father was a soldier in World War II,
or maybe
she'll sit and collect dust
in the corner of your room
but it doesn't matter
because that's not the point--
the point is
to indulge in some mocktail forbidden fruit,
to replace your vices with grape juice,
and relearn how to run in from the steet
and grip a cup with both palms,
or trip and fall like Gumby
and not care who might have seen.
at least, that's what works for me."
i appreciated her answer
and thought about it a long while,
but couldn't think of anything i wanted more
than a drag of her nice lit cigarette.
------
edit:
thank you so much for all the positive feedback :)) i just made a poetry blog, feel free to check it out!!
aureliafern.com
Posted Oct 29, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC · edited