Jiji Cat Inspiration Post ♡

Shinjuku, Tokyo

By danaulama

Music on

It all started with the first inhale. Then excessive coughing as my lungs rejected whatever the fuck i just inhaled in the first place. It was gross, the first few times. Tasted like ash and made my throat hurt. 

It wasn’t a good enough inhale where I could experience the sweet sweet headrush. It was just gross. 

I didn’t finish the cigarette.

The second time I did finish it. But it didn't make me feel any less better about the taste. Puffs small enough, and never reaching my lungs, mostly sitting on my tongue and I would blow it out. 

It came easier with time, now I take a drag of a cigarette first thing in the morning before I even have breakfast. I wouldnt say I'm addicted, but that's what everyone says right? But really, I'm not addicted. Just need it to soothe the ache in my skull. I just need it before I can start my day. I just need it so I can have a few moments to myself outside in the rain in the back of the restaurant, where I sit crouched beside a dumpster and stare at the pavement. I just need it so I feel less shitty about myself, but after I snuff out the butt in a cracked mug I designated as the ashtray, I still feel shitty about myself because I know exactly what it's doing to my lungs. But it’s because I know exactly what it’s doing to my lungs that I continue smoking. Like any teanager romantisising the ‘aesthetic’ of holding a cigarette between your fingers, I spend hours googling the permanent and short term effects of what adults have called a ‘cancer stick’. 

The name is funny, but in an unfunny way.

My dad doesnt know I smoke, so at night, when he’s asleep I sneak out and sit on the steps in front of the house and look up. The skies are mostly cloudy at night, but sometimes it's not. And I watch as the smoke curls around and dances around the thousands of bright white dots that decorate the sky with a lack of sunshine to hide them.

I can only find the Big Dipper off the top of my head. It’s the most recognisable constellation in the sky. Well, asterism. The Big Dipper is not a constellation. I went through a phase in high school.

I lost the ability to recall all of the constellations in my northern hemisphere. But if I look long enough, sometimes I can see Cassiopeia. I could never find the Little Dipper. 

And that's how it is. Smoke and stars and me.

Alone on my front patio away from where my dad can find me, smoking to feel the headrush that makes me feel high for a minute. It’s blissful, then I snuff out the butt, and place it in an old pack with the picture of a dying woman. The old pack is getting full. With burnt ends. And the picture is scratched from my keys.

“Smoking can affect generations,” it says. A picture of an old lady and her grown daughter, both looking like they haven't eaten in weeks. “Blah blah blah leading cause of preventable cancer.”

I know. And no amount of pictures the government will place on the packs will make me think “Oh, I should quit, I don't wanna end up like that.” 

I’ll quit when I want to. And it’s not going to be today, or tomorrow. 

It might be next week, who knows. 

I'm addicted. Funny that.

I always thought people who smoked looked cool, especially young ones, close to my age. But when I started smoking, I was around people much older and wiser who smoked too. They looked at me like they got it, and did not talk to me about it, or try to force me to stop.

They offered me one when I ran out. Sometimes they would buy me a pack.

“To save you some money for school.” He told me, then his cat jumped on his lap and began purring. She was a lovely cat. Was, as in, she died. Bone cancer. Funny that.

Shelly would purr like a lawnmower.

Asheville, North Carolina | Photo by @aroundq

🖤 Studio Ghibli 🖤