Smoking

It's probably politically incorrect to say this, but I think smoking is really beautiful. Forgetting about the black lungs and poison for a second, there is something so unexplainably glamorous and magical about it. The burst of flame as the cigarette is lit, the smoke that rises slowly easy conversation up and into the atmosphere, the smell of tobacco that is at once bristly and comforting. I know smoking is bad for you, it will kill you, or so I've been taught...But also there are slender cigarette holders and velvet gloves and Johnny Depp chain-smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. There are mint-favored cigarettes and the little cardboard boxes, blue caterpillar smoke rings and smoke-flavored kisses. I don't think I will ever smoke (because I have an addictive personality, for one), but there is something intoxicating about it.