Crushing the Chrysalis

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The Cigar

I want the chocolate one. Make it two. Please cut the tip. He bags it and adds a pouch for humidity. Who knows if I'll smoke it? It's rebellion enough to buy the thing. I'm in my early 20's again, scratching at the void with longer nails to mask what I refuse to notice.

I walk familiar streets and along the pier, sitting and watching people watch their phones.

Rolled and rectangular with a hint of chocolate. Dark leaves neatly folded like fey clothes in the Seelie Courts.  It smells like rebellion. The taste of leaves feel dry and moist. I lick the end and feel closer to the earth and dark soil. It's almost sweet until I light it. I fake a habit I used to own, preferring to blow out an oral fixation and imagine dragon's breath out of a borrowed phallus I destroy in embers and flicked away ash. You would think I forgot how to smoke but it's work to not step into instinct from a three pack a day habit nearly two decades old.  I turn it slowly for an even burn, blowing more than puffing so I can keep away the light headed bliss that tells me I want to return to this escape. I'm at peace with how unattractive it is because I handle it like a boss.

The moon is full and tells me these phases come and go with the force to pull waves along a shore, crashing and eroding even solid rocks with constant force because the moon is greater than anything we have on earth. It's great because as big as the earth is, you can't ignore the size of a moon that orbits the earth while dancing around the sun. It does what it will as I watch in gratitude for it's beauty and it's lessons and the life it forces in partnership with the sun.

It's a clear night with dotted lights along the shore and winking at me from the sky. I find a moment of grace and it feels like peace with joy around the edges. The other cigar will be a gift to brighten someone else's day and I smile because I find happiness in my giving.