Living Life Without Its Spices

A poem on addiction

I started smoking at sixteen
because life felt too big
and my hands felt too small.

And for years I kept that little fire going
like a sad altar
to nothing in particular.

People talk about quitting like it’s a battle of willpower.
They don’t get it.
The hardest part isn’t the craving.
The hardest part is the quiet.

When you take away the smoke
you have to sit there
with yourself.
Just you.
No fog.
No curtain.
No excuse.

And it’s strange, man.
It’s strange to realize you don’t know how to just exist.
How to walk from one room to another
without reaching for a ritual
to make you feel real.

It’s like living life without its spices.
Everything feels plain.
Everything tastes like unseasoned truth.
Water is just water.
Days are just days.
And you’re just you.
Raw.

And yeah—
I still hear the whisper:
just one.
Just one cigarette,
just one break,
just one moment of not feeling like you were dropped into your own skin
without instructions.

But I know that lie.
I’ve ridden that spiral.
One turns to a couple
and a couple turns to a chain
and pretty soon you’re dragging your own life behind you again.

So I don’t light up.
Not because I’m strong.
Not because I’m holy.
But because I remember the people who prayed for me.
I remember the hands that reached out
when I was sinking.
I remember God didn’t let go
even when I did.

And slowly
very slowly
life is getting flavor again.

Not the loud kind
not the neon buzz
not the high
not the hit—

but the quiet taste
of just being alive.

A friend laughing.
Cold morning air.
A stretch of silence that doesn’t feel like punishment.
A day that ends without regret.

This is what I’m learning:
the world was never bland.
I was just too numb to taste it.

I am not finished.
But I’m here.
Breathing.
Unspiced.
Alive.

If I can stay in this moment without running,
that is already a kind of resurrection.

And that is enough.