I don’t smoke weed anymore.
As a matter of fact,
It’s been more than twenty years
Since I last hit the chronic
With my friend Ricky
Down at the campsite.
But sometimes
I catch a whiff of the Mary Jane
Being smoked by the neighborhood kids
Where I live now, who seem to think
All adults
Are olfactory-challenged
Or, dumb
Or, both.
But not me.
Nope.
I know what the ganja smells like
The wacky tobacky
The funk of yo skunk
And, I know what time it is
When it’s 4:20.
And so, when I smell grass
That’s not really grass
It takes me back to a different time
To a place where the sticky residue of Funyuns
Still lives on the tips of your fingers
Where cheese puffs were blazed on fire
And wine was drank by a fire
Deep into the night
But not before we grabbed our skateboards
And bombed the hill at 1 a.m. leading out of town
But really, I never liked weed
Because unlike 99% of people who smoke weed
For me,
It increased my anxiety
Which I didn’t even know I had back then.
So, instead of geeking out like my friends
I sat there high on alert, quite literally,
Watching for cops, while drinking
A can of grape soda
Eating bag after bag of BAR-B-Q Fritos.
Photo by Roberto Valdivia on Unsplash