I am always left here

licking my lips, all awash

and aglow in an insect buzzzzzz

and a rush of wet air pushes through

the ripped seam in my shorts

            Where are we now? Another abandoned building, is this a house or maybe it’s too big to be a house it must have been a factory. I think I hear something that might be music from deeper inside. I’m probably imagining it. It’s spooky already in here and we just smoked a bowl so I feel a hand on the back of my neck and I imagine my funeral and my parents crying and my brother crying. It’s just Matt. Matt’s nice I think but mostly he has a lot of weed. I feel for a second like I’m in a cave.

            We start walking along the wall to our right using our cell phones to meagerly light the way. I pretend in my mind that we’re walking on an alien planet. We’re in a smaller hall now, the echoes of our footsteps are muffled and I can see the left wall in the small pool of light our phones cast. It really smells like mildew now and I can hear Matt breathing hard with his mouth open. We start going into rooms on either side of the hall and rifling through overturned file cabinets. Maybe this was an office building in its working days.

            The cabinets are full of boring papers but I think I found something good. I’m trying to pry open this rusty lockbox but it’s so dark and Matt grabs it from my hands, throws it onto the ground and stomps the shit out of it. The box is nearly collapsed from rust as it was and breaks easily and I scoop up a small pouch that lay in the flaked rust. I imagine for a second that I will kill Matt and take the pouch and whatever was inside it home for myself.

            We open the pouch sort of together, our fingers are tangling in the dark excitement. I pull out a Ziploc plastic baggy and I smell it immediately. This is the dankest weed I have ever held in my hands. I am staggered by the overwhelming beauty of the smell and nearly faint, my vision hazy and me only able to see what the blue light from Matt’s phone will show in wavy, faltering lines. Matt says that he thinks we should smoke it right then but I know that we have to go home and use my bong. Matt really wants to smoke it right away and whines a little bit and I remember why Matt and I aren’t very good friends.

            Back in my room, quiet because my parents were asleep and Matt wasn’t supposed to be there but not too quiet because their room was far away anyway. I take the bag out of my pocket and it looks to be a little more than an eighth of an ounce of weed. It looks and smells wonderful. Matt insists that because he had not gotten his way in the abandoned office building that he should definitely get to rip the bong first. I let him, if only to shut him up, and remind myself once more why Matt and I aren’t better friends. He packs the bong as much as he possibly can, looking up at me and saying “it’s time to get high” in a horrible, goofy voice and raising and lowering his eyebrows and I would have punched him if I didn’t think he would drop my bong. I am tense and sad that I’m going to smoke the best weed I’ll ever see with Matt. Matt and his smelly basement, his love for the band Disturbed.

            I watch him as he sucks air into the bong and sit shaking my head as the chamber goes from clear to grey to yellow to nearly black. He pulls out the slide and sucks double hard sitting and staring at me bug eyed with his cheeks all puffed up and stupid looking. He exhales and I think about how stupid he looks.