i need a cigarette

it used to be about smoking but it’s not that anymore. it’s about the break. the momentary distance from everything and everyone—the door shutting behind you, the weight slipping off your shoulders just enough to exhale without effort. when the day becomes too loud, when your inbox is full of questions you don’t have answers for, when your face hurts from holding expressions that don’t feel real, you reach for something that offers structure. six minutes. a lighter. inhale. exhale.

outside, the cold hits differently. sharper, but strangely welcome. you feel it on your face, across your knuckles. there’s no one asking anything of you out here. you don’t have to look busy or useful. you just have to stand there. that alone is a kind of relief.

your fingers fumble with the lighter, even if you’ve done this a hundred times. you bring it to your lips. that first drag is thin—habit more than need. but the second starts to land. not in your lungs, but somewhere deeper. in your chest, where everything’s been sitting too tightly all day. your jaw unclenches. your shoulders start to drop. it’s not peace, exactly, but it’s quieter. and quieter is enough.

you focus on your breath. not in the meditative sense people talk about in yoga classes or self-help podcasts, but in the practical, desperate way. you remember that breathing is something you control. you pull the smoke in and let it out slowly, like you’re rehearsing presence. the air fogs in front of your face, and for once, you don’t feel invisible.

there’s tranquility, previously unachieved, when you’re standing still and everything else feels like it’s moving too fast. a sense of rebellion in doing nothing. your phone stays in your pocket. you look at a fixed point—a lamppost, a pigeon, the way the wind moves a bit of litter across the street. it’s mundane. it’s yours.

you know this won’t solve anything. the cigarette will burn out. you’ll go back inside. the emails will still be there. your name will still be called. the world will still want more from you than you have to give. but for six minutes, you existed separately to the masses. for six minutes, you breathed. six minutes.

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