I used to know a man whose lips always held a cigarette. It would just dangle from his lips out of habit; part of the cig inside, between a pair of crooked, yellow lips and behind two sets of crooked, yellow teeth, and most of the cig outside, carelessly hanging there, swaying around with each grunt and grumble. When I was little, I used to always watch that part of the cigarette. Its swing was captivating. Hypnotizing. Mesmerizing. Almost narcotic. I watched it and felt, but did not feel, everything else slip away from my mind’s eye.
I never thought about the part that was inside the man’s mouth, though. Was it dry or was it moist? Was it clamped in between teeth, or was it only held in place by dry lips? Did it know the feel of a tongue, did it shudder at a cold gust of San Francisco wind whenever those lips opened ever so slightly to allow a word slip past?
I never thought about the part of the cigarette that wasn’t visible to the outside world. But I guess, now that I think about it… I suppose… I know… I know that it matters.
When the rest of the cigarette has burned out, the inside will be the last thing remaining and it’ll be all you have left of that cigarette.
Some people grind their cigarettes in between their jaws and pretty soon, they’re eating at them. And while they’re moistening up, the tobacco is breaking up and the whole darn things are disintegrating from the inside and everything is just falling apart and those people won’t be able to hold those perfectly white, wrapped, outside cigarettes from escaping under their noses.
Some people light others’ cigarettes for them. Some people let others take a smoke out of their own cigarette. Some people are really private about their puffs. I’d imagine that some people prefer smoking two at once. That’d probably kill them really fast, though.
And when I say these things, I’m not talking about tobacco in a roll. When I say these things, I’m talking about the part that strangers can’t see. I’m talking about that part some people are so desperate to keep hidden. I’m talking about that part some people are so ashamed of. I’m talking about what those tabloid magazines are so into getting at, but fail to get the real essence of most of the times. I’m talking about where the story is at. And, I guess… I guess for some, I’m talking about where the pain is at. But for everyone, at varying lengths and degrees of accessibility, there is that cigarette in between the lips.
