Bring me the severed head of the Tammy of old. The girl of two decades ago, with eyes that saw little on the surface and much of the inner workings of this façade we call life. Bring me the fearless persona that jumped at the chance to travel anywhere, without thought to the panic that now arises without warning.

The pills that I swallowed back then were all nameless, faceless strangers; lifted from some bottle I came across on my way through life. Today I bear the burden of the addiction to a substance that brings the promise of a panic free existence in twenty minutes or less. Save me. Shedding the old drug dealer, I had no idea that I was merely trading him in for a psychiatrist.

I wonder where the old face that I wore went? Rubbed off on my pillow, or washed down the drain?  Even my eyes have been changed, from green to blue, and I see nothing in my reflection that resembles the me that I once knew.

In my youth a thousand lines went up my nose, a million or more bong hits inhaled into my lungs. Searching for some sense of truth and reality, I thought for maybe a year or so that I had found it in ACID, only to have those taken from me in a split second when I wet my pants at a friend’s house while high. And so ended the LSD story.

Why the quest for a meaning to it all? Can’t it all just be, without any answers? I am tired of the long walks with futile destinations. The imagery that I find is lost on the way, as I have never carried a pen with me to catch it all. Why can’t I be among the many whom raise their heads to the day with a smile, and go about their business like sheep lead by a brainless leader? It is true, perhaps, that ignorance is bliss. How could I have ever thought otherwise? Smiles come so easily for other folk. I want to see the you inside of you, and not the painted on face that you apply each morning as you head for the door. Let us all be our naked selves, with flaws and pain and scary thoughts. Each of us is longing for something that we can’t seem to put into words.

Can you find something in a touch from a stranger that you’ve known for years, but never got to know inside, although you tried desperately? Let me just feel the calm of lying in the arms of a loved one without the constant restlessness that has plagued me for so long that I no longer know life without it.

Why must I feel so deeply the pain of the world on my shoulders? Have tears ever flowed from your eyes at the sight of the cover of the newspaper, waiting silently for you in the yellow box, ready for you to feed in your quarters so that you can hear what is going on in the fucking world? I don’ t even know what is going on within me, why should I know what is going on elsewhere? Turn off the news and turn on your lover. Ask the children around you about their dreams and thoughts and feelings. The history lessons that have stuck in my head have come from the elders that once surrounded me. Lessons on how to be true to myself have come from the children that have graced my life with their presence.

Let me sleep, it is my refuge. Let me write, it is my release.