God dammit.

You need to get Her out of your fucking head.

Fuck Her, you don't need Her, you don't love Her, you fucking hate Her, the fucking bitch.

But it's not true. Maybe you don't love Her, but you don't hate Her. You feel like you need Her. You feel like She needs to be there, always. Is that love?

You feel so desperate.

How long has it been? It has to be, what, two weeks now? Do you even remember what happened during those two weeks? You try and think back, but only remember a blur of nothing and fractured images of you attempting to ask other girls out. You seem to have an impeccable knack for asking out girls who are already in relationships. At least that is what they tell you. You are done with that, you are sick of failure and feeling even worse.

So what now? What the fuck are you supposed to do? Suicide seems like the optimal choice, but you would never do that. Suicide is for the weaklings who can't put up with the pain. You have a better idea, self destruction.

Self destruction is so easy and it may eventually lead to death.After all, self destruction is immensely more fun than self improvement. Self improvement requires actual work and sacrifice. Self destruction requires having fun. Even then, once you destroy yourself, you get to have an actual challenge in building yourself back up. You deserve a real challenge in life so self destruction it is, but which method should you choose?

You already drink, but not to excess. That would be an easy choice, but an expensive one. You also won't have any alcohol until the end of the month. Casual sex would be a very fun one, but even though you think you could pull it off, you know you don't have the balls to take it that far. You might as well go with the one you have been contemplating, smoking.

Smoking seems like a very easy thing to pick up. Literally. All you have to do is pick up a cigarette, light it and smoke. Simple. Though you are not completely sold on the idea. You need to try a cigarette before you go out and buy your own pack. After all, if you hate it that is money you could have spent on booze.

So you go and try and find someone to bum a cigarette off of. It wasn't too hard, you know a few people who smoke, so you go down to the tables outside to try your first cigarette. You get handed a menthol Marlboro and light it up.

You inhale. Sort of. You only bring the smoke into your mouth. It tastes good. You are not sure if you should actually inhale the smoke. You are pretty sure that is the appropriate way to smoke, but even though this is a way to kill yourself, cancer sounds pretty shitty.

So you make a vow, you are going to pick up smoking regardless of the complaints your friends lodge against you. You go grab that one girl, the crazy one who, for the first few weeks of knowing her, scared the crap out of you. You know she wanted to tag along and get some cigarettes as well so you let her.

So you drive to the gas station. You go inside and stare at the giant wall of cigarettes. It is daunting. Luckily you know exactly what you are going to buy. You get in line and wait your turn. You ask for the pack you want and go back to your vehicle. You are not sure what to do now, but then she asks you to take her to the bank so that solve that problem.

You take her to the bank and she does what she needed to do. You then go back out to your vehicle to smoke. You open your pack and take one out. You really suck with a lighter though, so she gives you a few pointers. You smoke and she starts the conversation.

"So why are you picking up smoking."

You have vowed not to lie, something you soon will change but not right now. "I wanted to do something bad for me, you know, this just seemed like the best decision."

"I know what you mean."

The conversation continues but what follows is inconsequential. Most of the talking is done by her; she tells you about her shitty life and while most lives are shitty, hers is even more so. The more you talk to people, the more you realize how much life sucks. You feel bad for her, though she still kind of scares and disgusts you.

You both finish smoking and get back into the vehicle. The conversation continues all the way back to campus. You part ways and try and decide what the hell you are going to do now. First and foremost, you are going to go wash your hands and brush your teeth. You can deal with the smoking, but not the smell on your hands and breath.

You vow to only smoke one cigarette a day. You refuse to become one of 'those' people. You will never be a pack-a-day smoker. It is terrible for you and is way too expensive. You are a poor college student, you can't afford a pack of cigarettes a day, hell you can barely afford a pack of cigarettes.

The week kicks off. You start going to certain classes a bit early so you have time to finish a cigarette beforehand. You secretly hope some of your friends will catch you in the act so you can explain yourself, but it doesn't happen. At the start, the only person who catches you is one of Her friends and since you are not talking to Her, you don't really talk to her.

You also find yourself sniffing your fingers a lot. You know you are doing this for two reasons. Your hand smells funny now and you find that strangely fascinating. You also want people to ask you what the hell are you doing, but no one does. It doesn't really matter though, you are actually enjoying smoking, a shock, so whether or not people argue with you about it you are still enjoying yourself.

The next day leaves you with too short of a break between classes, so you wait until you are finished for the day. You don't smoke while you walk, instead you scurry as fast as you can back to your building. Once you get there, you don't smoke. You go about your day as usual. You find yourself sitting alone in your room, bored and lonely as usual. That's when you get the urge.

You head downstairs to the area far enough away from the building to smoke. You sit down and light the cigarette you pull from the pack. You find this strangely relaxing. You are not sure if this is such a great idea. You were told when you started that smoking was a social thing. So many people all feeding their disgusting habits have nothing better to do than talk while they smoke. You don't go with this aspect though. You take this time to sit around and think.

Being alone with your thoughts isn't necessarily a good idea. You find yourself thinking about your life and all of its shit. All of its good as well. You fluctuate moods while jumping between dispositions. You swim through your mind. You debate the finer points of your mental state, which is still confused and frustrated. Then she walks up.

It is that one girl that lives on your floor. You think she is gorgeous, but she has a strange personality. Not a bad one, just unusual. What she does frustrates you. It also doesn't help that you happened to be thinking about a particularly bad memory at the time and your mood reflected that.

"What are you doing?" she says in an accusing tone.

"Uh, smoking?" you are not sure how to respond, since what you are doing is fairly obvious.

"That is filthy, why are you doing that?"

You have a loose idea as to why, but you are not going to explain that to her.

"It's complicated."

"I have family that have died from smoking, you need to quit."

Now you are getting angry. How dare she criticize you. She has no idea how fucked up you are in the head and what a fucked up idea this is. This is the first time you realize how strange this idea you have come up with is. That maybe self destruction isn't the answer. You swat those idea away for now. This is your life and she doesn't know you well enough to tell you what to do.

"You don't know the details and I am not going to explain them to you. I am doing this for a very personal reason and your complaints are only pissing me off."

That leaves her momentarily speechless. You didn't really mean to snap at her, but you did so now you have to live with it. Fuck you are fucked in the head right now.

"Fine," and with that she walks off.

Fuck. Good job, someone cares slightly about you and you push them away. You know you have problems getting close to people, pushing them away is not going to help. You sigh and continue smoking. Not that there is anything else to do. The burning end reaches the filter so you put it out and go back upstairs.

You try and go about the rest of your day. All that happens is you get more and more depressed. Everything is looking bleaker. You decide to break your one rule, you go down stairs again and smoke another cigarette. Good job, not even two days in and you break the only rule you set for yourself. Not that you care, this is getting you out of there and away from where She has been.

You can't help but think of Her. You don't think of Her like that this time. This time you try and figure out what you need to do to get Her out of your head. You know it is time, She is gone and you need to do something else now. You don't think of anything good, but you know that just thinking about moving on is a good step.

Another day passes. Another day of pain and frustration. Another day of your friends complaining about you smoking. Another day of smoking more than one cigarette, then proceeding to vigorously wash your hands and brush your teeth. Another day of contemplating.

God damn you hate people. Not any specific people, just people in general. They are a plague upon the earth. It is incredibly frustrating, being surrounded by people all the time. The only purpose they serve is so that you are not alone all the time. Being around people is horrible, but being alone is much worse.

Sigh. You need a smoke. You go down to the smoking area to be by yourself, but not sit alone in your room. You need to get out of there, She was there. You sit and stare out into the distance. You find it strangely soothing. You pull out a cigarette and light it. Now is the time for you to sit and be with your thoughts. If not now, then you will never be at peace. Though you are not sure you ever can be.

You didn't love Her. You were a bit infatuated with Her, but it wasn't love. You aren't even sure love exists. You consider it almost daily. You have reached the conclusion that whether or not love exists, you won't know until you experience it. This wasn't it.

It took a lot for you to realize this. You need to move on now. You are right back where you started and have no idea what to do, not that you had any idea in the first place. This is horrid, this feeling. This emptiness tears you up. The smoke doesn't fill that hole. This wasn't a good idea. You decide to go back upstairs.

M- is there. You don't know why, but you really like M-, he just seems like a nice person and you really enjoy talking to him.

"Hey, what's up?"

"You, I need to talk to you," M- takes you aside.

"What's up?"

"You need to stop smoking."

"What?"

"Promise me that you will not smoke until Saturday."

"What, why?"

"Because, you should stop, it's a challenge, don't smoke until Saturday."

"Um, okay."

"Great, okay I have to go. I will see you later."

You stand in silence for a moment. That was a very strange occurrence. You just promised M- that you wouldn't smoke and smoking has actually been beneficial for you. You have been thinking about quiting though. You are sick up the smell and really don't want to have to pay for more cigarettes. It's not like you even smoke 'right.' Maybe this is a sign that you should stop.

You put the cigarettes in your desk drawer and don't take them out when you are gathering your things in the morning. The day passes and they remain there. And the next. And the next. They remain there for a week, then you decide to give the rest of the pack to the crazy girl down the hall. You can't just throw them away, they cost money.

You picked up and quit smoking in the span of a week. You are an idiot. You need a new outlet for you anger and frustration. You are not sure what you will do, whether or not it will be worse than this, but only time will tell. You tell the world to fuck off and then go to sleep.