Clean & sober & toothy

Still not smoking. Not a puff. Oh. How. I. Want. One. Now. I. Don't. Remember. Quitting. Being. This. Hard. Don't. Wait. Until. You're. Over. 40. to. Quit. It. Sux. Real. Real. Bad.

I want to chew things. Not like gum or candy. I want to chew leather sofas, cedar shingles, and baby grand pianos. Right now I'm looking at my piano, and, quite literally, thinking how good the splinters would feel in my gums if I gnawed on it. Once I get past the finish, I imagine a sweet, slightly acrid taste. And soft wood pulp giving way...

Someone ship me a nylabone, quick.

Instead of ruining a family heirloom, I have made other plans. I'm chomping on those fat-free pretzel things that are the size of a bear's paw. I'm quite sure I've loosened three fillings, but I'm actually looking forward to the root canal. Mmmmmm. Saweeet. Only two nerves? Oh, I was hoping for four.

Anyway those pretzels apparently have no fat, no calories, no nothing except the cardboard from the box they come in, which is what they taste like.

But I don't mind the taste because, you see, they move every part of my oral network when I chew them. They absorb all of little parts of me missing my ciggy friends. I wish I could think of something even harder to chew on--like maybe steel.

What is this?

What the fuck is this feeling? I feel like an animal in a steel-jaw leghold trap ready to amputate myself free.

Chew or be chewed.

Well. That's what it's like to be me just now.

And there's a pig just over the backyard fence.....