Dodo Eraser

She hopes quitting him will be like quitting cigarettes. Her last drag of a Marlboro Red was in 2001. She can’t quite call to mind the experience of smoking. Or even why she started. She can’t recall the taste or the smell, but she remembers she liked it. Craved it. Needed it. Remembers the ritual of lighting each cigarette. Remembers that she marked her day as the passage of time between 20 paper breaks. She thinks about him. Her last message to him was 7 days ago. She holds his details clear and in-focus in her mind. She remembers why she started with him. Recalls his taste and smell. Why she liked him. Craved him. Needed him. Loved him. Remembers the ritual of that first kiss each time they met. Remembers that she marked her day as the passage of time between their shared photos, texts, and calls. Since 2003, she has identified as a “non-smoker / never smoker” on her annual health questionnaire. During this year’s physical, her doctor pressed a cold stethoscope against her back and noted her lungs sounded fine. The healthy lungs of someone who had never smoked. Time erasing the tobacco-stained evidence from her body. She wonders how long it will take for time to erase the evidence of him from her body. How long it will take her heart tissue to regenerate, to remove all traces of him. How long will it be before she will have the heart of someone who never loved him. Like smoking, loving him was a stupid and dangerous habit. Reckless. One she was too old and too smart to start. Like smoking, she should’ve known better. Like smoking, she didn’t realize how fast she’d become addicted. Like smoking, he was all she could think about. Like smoking, he was a secret. A source of shame. A reason to hate herself. Loathe herself. Like smoking, she knew she’d need to quit but she started anyway. Knowing something won’t last doesn’t make it easier to end. She wonders if there is goodness in trying to remember him. Inventory everything about him while it is clear in her mind. The soft downy of his chest hair, the curve of his lip when he smiled, the blue of his eyes. How he called her Babygirl and how it made her feel safe until the moment it didn’t feel right anymore. She wonders if anyone will ever love her the way he did. Make love to her the way he did. Love her body the way he did. Should she file him away in the deep archive of things she won’t experience again but wants to remember? She sorts through View-Master images from her past. Reminisces about the vitiligo-speckled hands of her grandfather, the lemon-wax smell of her grade school hallways, and the freedom of her first set of roller-skates. Treasured recollections stored in the deep well of her memory. Things she’ll always remember. She takes one final drag of him, feeling the familiar burn deep in her lungs. She exhales his memory. Stubbing out the last of him against the curb.

Johannah Simon is a corporate learning strategist by day and (sometime) creative by night. A Midwest GenX multi-genre writer, her pieces have appeared in literary journals, including The Hooghly Review, Fussub, The Sufferer’s Digest, Bending Genres, Fahmidan, and Janus Literary.  You can find her on X @JohannahWrites, @johannah.bsky.social, and at www.thewritingtype.com.