I Thought I Was Just Smoking… I Was Actually Healing

I Thought I Was Just Smoking… I Was Actually Healing

By BR Wilson Guitars & Cigars, The Bipartisan Patriot

I go to the porch when the house finally settles,

when the last voice folds into the walls

and the day stops asking questions.

I bring the cigar like a quiet ritual,

leaf, fire, breath,

nothing rushed, nothing borrowed.

—

I sit alone and do not call it loneliness.

I call it space,

room enough for a man to hear himself

without translation.

The chair creaks. The night leans in.

A distant car passes like a thought

I choose not to chase.

—

I strike the match,

a brief sun in my hand,

and the first draw comes uneven, honest,

like speech after a long silence.

Smoke rises,

slow writing in the dark,

curling, shifting, refusing to be kept.

I watch it go and learn something simple,

how to lift, how to loosen,

how to let a thing exist

without trying to hold it still.

—

There is comfort here in not performing.

No applause to chase, no face to wear,

no clever line needed to earn a nod.

Here, I am not improved.

I am present.

I carry the noise of the day

and do not amplify it.

I carry the doubts

and do not build a stage for them.

I carry the quiet,

and it holds.

—

The ember glows like a steady heart,

unbothered by the dark around it.

I draw, I breathe out,

not to escape, but to remain.

Each breath a small agreement,

stay here,

with this body, this mind, this hour

that owes me nothing

and gives me everything.

—

The night does not judge me.

The smoke does not argue.

The stars offer no advice.

Good.

I am finished with advice.

—

To the one who fills every silence,

who reaches for noise to outrun his own weather,

sit.

Bring only what you need.

Leave the roles at the door.

Let the quiet sit beside you

without trying to fix it.

Light something slow.

Watch it burn without panic.

Feel how the moment opens

when you stop trying to control it.

—

I remain here,

on the porch of my own life,

unrushed, unedited, unafraid

of the company I keep.

The smoke rises.

The night holds.

The man I am

sits easy with himself.

At last,

more or less.