"Introduction to marijuana"

by Lianne Olive Hennig

I stared at his chest.
His muscles bulged in a strangely flat, revolting way;
No soft dips or curves to release the
Monotony of what appeared to me
Like burgeoning scar tissue
Left behind when some gigantic blood vessel
Burst inside his chest and
Swelled, till it had filled all the gaps and
Solidified, like a monstrous haematoma.

A mass of wildly curling body hair spun out
Over the neck of his singlet,
Crawling menacingly over his shoulders and
Down his back.
His neck was thick and short, and
Led to a head that resembled a small volleyball -
Round and smiling but
Tight across his lightly bristled cheeks.

His black-pored nose led up to
Faintly intelligent, simian eyes;
Brow sloped back like a king gorilla, his
Blood-shot eyes taking in every detail while
His mind perched on some
Faraway, forgotten planet;
And, atop, much sparser greasy hair curled
Closely on a reddened scalp - as if
Making a last ditch effort to stay on.

He wiped along his brow and down the
Side of his face with an unmanicured hand, its
Chipped nails and knobbly fingers displaying ingrained dirt and grease,
Then, dipped it into a worn and grinning pocket of
His jeans to produce a pouch of grubby tobacco and 
A sheath of virgin rice paper, about to be besmirched with
Slavers of such magnitude as to nearly disintegrate it.

His fingers, surprisingly adept, laid two tobacco strands
Per quarter centimetre of paper, and then
Crumbled what looked to be a large lump of
Well-rolled snot, derived from a wrapping of silver foil -

The lot sealed with a loving lick of
Regurgitated mucous.

I pondered the greyish stick as he
Held it under my nose in a fumbling effort to
Guide it into my mouth…
What the heck!  I thought, after realising he wasn’t going to
Allow me to wait until the spit dried before lighting it, and
Let it settle gently on my bottom lip while
Keeping my tongue well out of the way.

A puff or two of surprisingly smooth smoke
Hovered around my front teeth
Before being ejected in a burst of stale air, and
My lips hung vacant while
He drew a drag that burnt faster than the speed of light.
Two thirds of the cigarette later, I was allowed to try
Another semi-puff that just managed to
Meander its way downpipe before exhalation,
Producing a mildly “on fire” sensation in my
Rapidly analysing, waving taste buds, until
It was snatched away again to be
Inhaled into oblivion - it’s pitiful life so short!

He sat back and gazed at me, 
Eyes bursting with smoke.
I wondered if some would start leaking from his ears
But, apart from a slight choking in his speech, it
Seemed not to affect him.
He smiled a limp, big-teeth, loose-tongue smile, and
Proclaimed me a new disciple, while
I sat wondering how much it had taken to
Eat away his brain.