"We Queers Just Know How To Elevate Anything": Inside FLAMER's Budding Cannabis Scene

Chris Roney, Honeysuckle Magazine, August 12, 2023
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BRIAN ALARCON, POET AND MODEL

I'm naturally very high energy, to the point that before I started smoking weed, I would have hyperactive lash-outs that I couldn’t control. Smoking has helped my personality slow down, and helped me focus my energy in the right places. Mostly I smoke to work out, and although I lose most of my social skills, I gain a more powerful body. Because weed helps me block out pain, stress, I can push harder and enjoy the experience better. Then when I get home I can really relax, with a psycho-sized meal and perhaps another joint as a digestif.

Weed has definitely made me worse at reading too, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. Poetry can be so dense, and it’s hard to take a path that isn't academic or in straight-up literature, and even I'm bored by that. Instead of spending my day reading the latest scholarly masterpiece by an agonized Midwesterner, I'm on that Silly Goofy biking to the depths of north Queens, where the ladies at Pollos Mario or the guys on the handball courts have a much more inspiring rhythm."