Life is like a cigarette. One drag after another. Of course, mother wouldn't dare imagine I knew what 'drag' even meant, none the less know about cigarettes. Yet here I am, lighting up a pack of Newports on the back porch, only a prime 16 years old. My room is spotless, my grades sound of the noise you make at the doctors, AAAAH, and every hair is in place. Is it such a sin to want to breathe for once? I believe if anyone saw me in the state I'm in past 10 o'clock, once mother is asleep, they'd be dumbfounded. They'd look at those dreary eyes of mine and wonder, how? Why? What? Who? But, then they'd leave, like everyone always does, and care not for what I am doing, or who I was. They would only see a lost, depressed, hopeless mess of a teenager, swallowing pain with every gulp of smoke. I might seem perfect while the sun shines, but once that moon rises beyond the hills, my soul does too. And for the wee hours of the night, I am myself. Lost, hurt and broken.