I Saw a Stub In The Stairwell

📅 May 31, 2026

I saw a cigarette stub in the stairwell yesterday. For a second, I had a mix of want and nostalgia. I blinked, diverted my mind, and the urge dissolved. I couldn’t even tell you the exact second it left. That evening, I spoke to a friend. We talked about life; we talked about smoke. The last time he smoked was last year, he said. His romance with the ouid had come to an unceremonious end when his fiancé walked in on him and caught that whiff of weed crouching beneath all that perfume. She had raised hell, and he’d folded like a garden chair.

So, you stop? I asked him. Omo, I gats stop oo, he replied.

For a second, he sounded like a boy.

That shit caught me off guard. Back in law school we’d been roommates. He was the inveterate Don Juan who never took the opinion of women seriously, much less being cowed by any into making a decision, and I was the unrepentant smoker who converted that notoriety into a business venture.

Now, here he was, a man domesticated by devoted here was I, a few years off dope and two full months off cigarettes, actually forgetting the taste.

That’s life for you. Some shit you simply outgrow. Some other shit, you leave in the ashtray.

______

Reading some of my past work this morning, I rose from a rot and was inspired to write. I thought about home, and I thought about old friends. I thought about reaching out and I thought about pulling out. I thought about popsy, and I thought about white hair. For a minute I thought about addiction and decided that was too heavy a topic to tackle, so I circled back, thought about pulling out and said, a’ight, today!

I once had this friend whom I bought, but never actually gave, a bracelet. I had to stop myself to calculate the ROI on that friendship, and the maths was… let’s say, dismal. I’d spent hours on the phone listening to garbled monologues, things I didn’t care about. I’d offered help she didn’t ask for, simply because I sensed a need. I’d been the “model friend”, the one who leaves tips, reviews, the whole thing. Faaa!! None of it mattered.

It didn’t necessarily hurt. It just sat there, subtly pressing against my peace of mind like a piece of meat stuck in my molars. It bothered me that I hadn’t still learned to judge friendships by the measure of what each party gave (or was willing to), regardless of what they had. It bothered me that I was still naïve enough to think certain people had a floor to how low they could go. Bothered me that I was always willing to make up for what they refused to offer but were capable of. Bothered me that that birthday text never came, not even as a courtesy.

I didn’t try to understand this. Some things we try to understand, we just end up rationalizing, because the truth is too annoying to admit. That, I didn’t want to do. I pulled out.

Through the happenings that marked my life, I went offline to mull on life. I resurfaced to find out she’d lost a family member. I reached out to commiserate, but she didn’t acknowledge the effort. A friend said it was the heftiness of her grief, but I was like, nah, I know this particular fat pig. She was still mad about the bracelet (she will never receive in this life).

Some people would say, Well, I wish her luck wherever she is. Fuck that, for I lack such measure of grace and goodwill. I do not want her to perish, but I’m not wishing her a spa day either. What I wish is the required dose of misery to keep her occupied, but moving, and enough friction to keep her soul restless and her teeth gnashing.

Ah-men.