Prompt: It takes 21 days to make a habit but 101 days to break it.

Please note, the photo is a stock image, I don’t smoke and very rarely drink strong liquor.

The first day is a single thread,
A thought not wholly yours, it’s said.
By day seven, a slender string,
A whispered tune you start to sing.
At twenty-one, the habit’s spun,
A finished knot, the deed is done.
The neural path is worn and plain,
A measured dose, a sweated pain.

But to un-weave, the count expands
Across far more demanding lands.
One hundred and one days begin
To excavate what’s buried in.
A century plus one, to trace
And then erase that grim embrace.

For alcohol, the glass’s ring
Lingers, a cold, remembering thing.
The throat recalls the liquid fire,
The false collapse of fear and ire.
One hundred mornings, clear and sore,
To not reach for that numbing door.

For powders, pills, the phantom chase,
The hollowed time, the stolen face.
The chemistry that lied and swore,
Leaving a gaping, wanting, sore.
One hundred nights to learn anew
The slower science of making it through.

For reckless sex, the touch that takes
More than it gives, the soul that aches,
The borrowed heat, the fleeting name,
That leaves you feeling just the same.
One hundred dawns to comprehend
A tenderness that cannot bend.

For porn’s bright screen, the pixel-glow
That makes a commerce of the soul,
The lonely, artificial spark
That paints the real and loving dark.
One hundred battles to regain
The quiet kingdom of your brain.

For secret, grasping release,
The act that promises a peace
But spins a cage of silent shame,
A flickering, self-serving flame.
One hundred days to meet the ache
With patience, for compassion’s sake.

The evil’s in the siren call
That says this will be all in all,
That substitutes a quickened thrill
For steadfast strength of mind and will.
It grafts a counterfeit, crude vine
Where a tall true tree of life might climb.

So count the cost, this grim arithmetic:
Twenty-one to build, with practiced trick.
One hundred and one to break, with stone on stone,
To walk, at last, the lonely long road home.
The greater number holds the greater gain:
To wear the light, and bear the honest rain.

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