First Drag

no one warns you
it doesn’t end
they laugh
press it into your hand
like it isn’t loaded
like it won’t
rewrite your lungs
teach your body
a new language of wanting
the first drag
tastes like an ember
like something
you weren’t meant to survive
I choked on it
thought
that’s it
I could’ve left it there
I didn’t
because the second drag
is softer
it slips in
like it’s always belonged
and suddenly
your hands move on instinct
your mouth remembers
before you can refuse

by the third
you’re not experimenting
you’re searching
for that first flicker
before it scorched
when everything slowed
when the world softened at the edges
when your chest opened
just enough
to feel like something close to alive
but it never returns
so you reach again
and again
and again
until it stops being
something you choose
and becomes
the thing choosing you
my mornings taste like cinder
my nights stretch thin
waiting for the next inhale
I whisper
just one more
like it’s a promise
like it’s a prayer
my hands tremble

like they’ve learned the truth
before I have
because the truth is
there is no ending
no final drag
only the next one
and the next
and the next
a hunger that hollows
a breath that never settles
lungs folding inward
around an ache
that only deepens
and I would quit
I swear I would
if I could remember
what air felt like
before it needed
to be chased