How many times?
This exact thing,
In this exact place?
Smoking in the yacht club parking lot,
Listening to the Friday night bands,
At the bar a block north.
Back at 15 or 16 –
I’d just go to the liquor store in my work clothes.
Black grease stained face & visi gear.
Reeking of orange clean.
Buy beer or hard bar all the time.
Weed was still “illegal” back then.
But I smoked Cigarellos,
Like many trades kids did.
Blackstone Cherry like some Logger Gurus did before they died.
Primetime Grapes.
They hooked us teens like candy –
Literally.
That’s before they got banned,
Made illegal.
Was in my twenties,
When that happened.
I agree with it completely,
Didn’t quit smoking tobacco until I was 20 or so.
Double Down.
Chain smoking menthols around my block in circles,
Puking in a bush thereafter.
Never since that night.
Cig smoke equals retches.
Same as edibles with any strong taste of weed.
My tradie poker circles griped,
Bought flavored tobacco products in bulk before the ban dates.
Thank fuck I never touched skoal or dip,
Like my kin.
Rots your gums,
Mouth cancer most often.
He’d forget.
Leave his dip bottles in the basement rec room, which were mouldy by the time I stumbled into them.
In socks no less.
Look like skids did then.
Nice rain jackets over hoodies and t-shirts.
Remember when girls would wear pullover hoodies, nothing else beneath.
Some boys leered, the bastards.
Time before smartphones,
When every text cost money;
To flirt,
Or schedule.
Meeting sometimes for lewd affairs,
The original goal of such hoodie, no-bra escapades.
Good for them!
I ventured worse.
Way too young.
Poor partners of my blundering youth.
Before I even knew what trauma was.
Scene & Emo Kid Alt Life,
Broken neurodivergence & queers –
Flocking together.
Skids,
They called us.
Burnouts.
Was the first of my entire family,
To ever go to University,
Or get a degree.
Much less two.
Living a life past thirty,
Was some far off dream.
Feel bad for everyone who has ever met me.
But it’s all bonus time from here.
Cigarellos.
