[Intro]

Match strike... long inhale

[Verse 1]

She left her lipstick on the last one in the pack

Ruby red reminder that she ain't coming back

I smoke it anyway, taste her on my lips

Funny how goodbye still burns when you take a hit

Four walls and a window, that's my world tonight

Kitchen table covered in our last fight

Wedding ring sitting in the ashtray like it belongs

Right next to everything else we got wrong

[Chorus]

Twenty cigarettes since you walked out that door

Each one a memory I can't ignore

First one was anger, second one was blame

By number three I was choking on your name

Pack getting lighter but my chest getting tight

Twenty cigarettes burning through the night

Doctor said they'd kill me, honey so did you

Difference is I knew the cigarettes were bad news

[Verse 2]

Number seven was the night we met at Rosie's bar

You were singing Patsy Cline underneath the stars

Eight was our first dance, nine our wedding day

Ten through twelve the years I begged your ghost to stay

Thirteen I remember how you laughed just like a song

Fourteen I admitted I knew something was wrong

Fifteen was his name carved in your phone

Sixteen I realized I was already alone

[Chorus]

Twenty cigarettes since you walked out that door

Each one a memory I can't ignore

First one was anger, second one was blame

By number three I was choking on your name

Pack getting lighter but my chest getting tight

Twenty cigarettes burning through the night

Doctor said they'd kill me, honey so did you

Difference is I knew the cigarettes were bad news

[Bridge]

Seventeen I poured your perfume down the drain

Eighteen I stood naked in the rain

Trying to wash you off my skin, out my head

Nineteen I crawled back into our bed

Smelled you on the pillow, lost my goddamn mind

Lit the last one knowing what I'd find

Nothing at the bottom of a habit but more need

You and nicotine, same disease

[Verse 3]

Twenty cigarettes gone, so I drove to the store

Two AM in my boxers, couldn't take no more

Old man behind the counter said "rough night son?"

I said "mister you don't know the half of what she done"

He slid another pack across the counter slow

Said "I smoked these forty years after my Linda let go

Some pain don't have a cure, just a way to cope

Boy sometimes a cigarette is better than a rope"

[Chorus]

Twenty cigarettes, now I'm starting twenty-one

Sunrise coming up but I ain't done

Each drag a little prayer she might call

Each ash a piece of me I let fall

Pack getting empty like the bed where she slept

Twenty cigarettes the only promise I kept

Said I'd quit when she quit me, here's the proof

Twenty cigarettes, I'm still on the roof

[Outro]

Long exhale

Surgeon general says these things'll take your life

Ain't say nothing bout a cheating wife

Twenty-one... twenty-two... twenty-three...

Some addictions wear a ring

Some wear a warning label

Only one of em told me the truth