[ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ]	Detrimental Love Affair by Dana Kaye I have pothead syndrome. No, it is nothing amusing and there is no known cure. The causes are simple, as are the theories behind the condition: once a pothead, always a pothead. I hear the crack of a blunt and my eyes begin to water. The snap of a lighter makes my ears twitch. Mary Jane’s sweet aromas dance into my nostrils from a mile away. It’s a sickness and there is no known cure. . . . . X puts holes in your brain. Acid gives you flashbacks. Coke is for the rich kids on the north shore and crack is for the ghetto folks on Howard. Weed was the perfect fit. Every pothead remembers their first time, like losing your virginity. Mine was in the stairwell, in the little space between my apartment building and the one next to it. We were only twelve, Heather and me. So, we couldn’t buy papers, pipes or blunts. She took her Mama’s bible from the bookcase and ripped out a couple pages. “They’re from the back,” Heather said, “she won’t notice.” She was the friend that every mother called a bad influence. She had pink hair, a mouth that just flapped in the wind, she wore all her clothes five sizes to big, and she was so small that she could probably fit into one of her pants pockets. She was a bad influence in some ways. I already had the ideas in my head. I knew I wanted to smoke. Heather just made it happen. Her sister was in high school already, and she had all the connections. So Heather rolled the gorgeous greenery in the pages of Deuteronomy and licked it shut, wincing at the slight taste of ink. We sparked it and since she rolled it, she took the first hit. We had been smoking cigarettes for over a month, so we knew how to inhale, but we weren’t prepared for the feeling when the high crept up on us like a stalker in the night. Everything looked brighter, food tasted better, words sounded funnier, and ideas seemed more intriguing. Why would you want to be any other way? A true pothead always asks this question and for the next two years, I had my detrimental love affair with that sexy goddess Mary Jane. It was like having a girl you just can’t stop fucking, a song you can’t stop singing, a food you can’t stop eating. It consumes you, it’s all you think about, it takes priority over everything, it’s the only thing that’s important.