Fags are a teenage right of passage
You know you shouldn't do it but you do
You know it's not a lifestyle choice but you do it and live in the moment
Coz it makes you feel like a badass

Fags are an unhealthy blast from the past
Stupid teenage angst, and dreams of being different, cultured and free

Rebelling against the man
Whoever that is anyways
The nicotine rush isn't too bad either
You feel it as you inhale, it travels through your blood
You cough up your lungs but try it once again

You see fags are a right of passage
A teenage life well lived
You know it's dumb and it stinks like hell
But anything to rebel against the parents
Against the world

You feel on top of the world as a youth
But also in the darkest depths of hell
Your thoughts run a muck, much darker than you ever thought they'd be
You find it hard to breath

Smoking gives you the feeling of a lifetime
It's a past time
Drags you back up to shore
You take a gulp of air for a second
Before you struggle underneath the black sludge.

———-

The pressures of teenage life from parents and peers is something I'd had a bit of trouble expressing into words recently. One day I started writing down how I felt about cigarettes after getting caught by my parents for smoking.

Getting caught for something that big I believe changed my home dynamic forever; at least for now. It's something I'd had a hard time processing on my own, so I decided to start writing down how I felt about it.

A tumble of words started to leap out of my mouth onto notes on my phone until this 'poem' was born. I put poem in speech marks because I feel like that word is reserved for the geniuses of the past who actually knew how to write an awe inspiring poem. An actual crafted masterpiece. My heap of words isn't and wasn't a masterpiece by any means. It was a way to understand what I was feeling at the time. I felt as though my parents would never truly be able to understand me and how I was feeling; sometimes I doubt they ever truly will.

But for now, I often like to look back at it as it forever documents a stage of my teenage years.

It's a part of me that I want to share with you.