You do not buy an ashtray. You have thrown out all the ones you ever had, six of them last year. Six because you quit six times. Because six times you stopped and told yourself, I will die if I do not stop. Six times because each time, something happened and you got a new pretty ashtray. 
And a pretty ashtray is a terrible thing to waste. 
You have figured it out. No more ashtrays.
An ashtray is a statement of intent. It is commitment. It is a desire to follow through with suicide by instalment, puff by puff. An ashtray says, I am what I am. 
And you are not what you are. 
So you ash in dirty dishes, swearing each one is your last, counting the days or months until suicide is deactivated in your lungs. Your cheap dishes are not pretty. They are not terrible things to waste. 
You are not what you are. 
You count the days since you stopped taking your life. The days until you you will start again. 
***
You are staring at the dishes before the first ash drops. The flat one or the ceramic bowl? Or the sink? 
Whatever.
As long as you have no ashtray, you are not what you are. You are not what you are. 
Finally you have learnt how to do it. Circles. You blow a few. Circles. You smile until it disappears. Circles.
But you are not what you are.