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We smoked cigarettes. We smoked cigars. We smoked pipes. We liked smoking. We liked lighting things on fire. We liked controlling the fire. We liked matches and lighters and fireworks. We liked to cut hollow reeds into short lengths and smoke them. 

We hid cigarettes in our rooms, and we hid cigarettes in each other’s rooms. We cut class to smoke. We left campus at lunch and drove around, smoking. Some afternoons, we would end up in Tijuana drinking pitchers of Margaritas and never make it back to school. 

We drank beer and whiskey and anything we could get our hands on, but we were always smoking. We would go down to the cafe by the water and spend 75 cents for a large ‘coffee of the day’ – I hated coffee, but I drank it because it made me feel like I was flying…for about twenty minutes. Then, I crashed. I often wouldn’t finish. The coffee was OK, but we loved cigarettes. 

We could also afford cigarettes. They weren’t necessarily cheap, but they weren’t that bad. You couldn’t get a sandwich for the price of a pack of smokes then. We were communists with our cigarettes. We were bums, bumming and passing out smokes like communion wafers. 

We could sit for hours, blowing smoke into the azure blue sky and watching it dissipate, wafting into indistinguishable cloud shapes. We could stand under a streetlight and send plumes up into the sick, halide glow. We could do this for hours. We did do this for hours.
We knew people with pickup trucks! We were happy to sit in the back of a truck and smoke. Kings and Queens. The smoke was our robes. The smoke-rings our crowns. Our scepters tipped in orange, shattered the night. 

I don’t smoke anymore, and it grosses me out now, but I know there was a time when cigarettes were something I needed…not the nicotine, but the process. The crutch. The thing to do with my hands. That thing that helped me not feel as anxious.
I met a lot of cool people smoking cigarettes. Some are dead now, but not all of us. 

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I want to tell you a little story about a boy who was disillusioned. It’s a common story, but that doesn’t make it less important. 

This boy had good intentions, and he assumed the same about the tall people around him.

He was more interested in befriending the crows that came to rest on his rooftop than hearing the old people drone on. 

People had to be good; it was the only way the world made sense. 

It took him a few years to realize his mistake.

When he did realize…it was like the roof caving in. He stood looking at the broken tractor and listening to his grandfather explain how it ended up in the ditch. But the liquor smelled stronger than the fuel…the boy couldn’t believe it. 

The old man looked him straight in the eye and lied.

Then, he started really paying attention, and he got older. He started to see the compromises that people made. He saw the bias and the straight-up deception. He saw selfishness all around him...but the women told him he had to act happy. Put on a happy face.

So, he tried. 

And that was the bigger lie. He shucked and grinned and glad-handed for all he was worth, but in the end, he was alone - his troubles known only to him. He couldn’t bear to be around people. Him, a liar. Them, still lying. His skin burned when he was near them. He stayed up nights wondering what pit of hell would finally have them. 

And him.

They said life was precious down at the church, but the boy figured that for a lie, too. He knew the same sick things about the minister that the whole town did, but he couldn’t choke it down. Everyone else seemed to look away, to make excuses, but it broke him. Same with his family. They said they loved him, but they hurt him and smiled afterwards. 

The boy was raised with guns, but he never had any desire to hurt anyone but himself. He thought of checking out many times. It was a passing thought until it wasn't. 

He took the shotgun off the wall carefully, and when the gun went off even the crows left. They never came back. There was no reason to. Not with the boy gone.

“I did my best.”

That was the last thought the boy thought.

Then an owl screeched in the night.

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Language is magic. Every sentence spoken is a spell; every speaker, a magician. Those of us who are fortunate remember when words were free! When we could wrap them around our bodies for safety. Words were invitations, not curses. 

Not then.

The ones with the blank eyes communicate with points and grunts. They get by, but there is no art to it. No feeling. They are shadows.

The ones who live underground are terrifying. They scuttle between alleys and they scrabble for scraps with torn, bleeding nail-beds. 

The “statues” are already dead. They sway to the blues coursing through their bloodstreams. They are human apparitions. You stop seeing them eventually, but at first they can be very unsettling. 

Please know, the ones who live under the streets are not the rich who live in bunkers. They still wear white linen and gold. Underground is paradise for them. I am speaking of the ones who live with the rats, not the ones who engineered the disaster. 

I am the one who remembers the words. They mean nothing, but they calm me. I say them under my breath while I separate skin from bone. 

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Hey MAGA, it's been a few months now. Not to count the years. Was it worth it? Did you get what you wanted? Does the country look like you want it to look, yet? It's different, that's for sure. There's a lot I can't wrap my mind around, but I will tell you what I SEE.

I see gas prices up. Food prices up. Services slashed. Safeguards obliterated. And that's the easy part.

I see people terrified. I see people losing hope. I see true patriots turning away from the ugliness. I see an ideal dying on the vine, and I blame all of them...the republicans, the democrats, the idiots who think they don't have to get involved. The morons who think politicians are supposed to be their super-buddies or mentors.

I saw two citizens shot dead in the streets. I saw people beaten and stolen and swept under the rug. I see migrants dying because they have been identified as something less than human, when, clearly, they are just as human as my ancestors who just happened to emigrate from a lighter-skinned place. 

I see a bunch of people willing to apologize for pedophile rapists.

I see the world turning away from us. 

I see Iranian propaganda that makes a whole lot of sense. 

I have watched journalism - something I once revered - be turned into state messaging and apologist excuses. Gotta sell that ad time, right? Gotta look out for your shareholders!

I thought we were looking out for each other in REAL ways. I thought we didn't want our neighbors targeted and harassed. I thought we wanted the American Experiment to mean something. I thought we wanted the world's "downtrodden" - I thought we were heroic like that. 

I see now that we are small and misinformed. I see that corruption sinks everything given time. I see that there are far more people than I thought who care only about themselves. 

I thought we had made some progress with the systemic racism. I didn't know it was a feature a bunch of y'all missed and mourned. 

I thought we wanted to be free...like y'all in Texas who are so free you can't smoke smoke a naturally -growing plant or get an abortion. 

I see that money is really the root of all evil, and it is killing us.

I see hypocrisy. Everywhere. 

And I hate it.