Mi amiga, mi Querida, you BITCH
You have let me down
I was faithful to you through all the years, believing we belonged together
Sacrificing other things so I could be with you, so you could be part of my identity
And you returned the favor, until things began to turn
I notice things missing, and wondered if you were to blame
At first, dear Potty, you were so sweet
You were always with the funny people, the cool people
They said I would be cool too if I let you in my life, I would be a rebel, I would fight Nixon
with every breath I took
And so I turned my back on my first impressions
That the cool people were a bit dopey, that their habits would disgrace a junkie from
Harlem, that they were narrow
That Iceberg Slim was for reading, not living!
I'd read about drugs and how it made a person selfish and paranoid, not sharing,
counting to see what he had compared to others, feasting on resentment
But some of your friends didn’t even know Iceberg Slim, and they still felt cool!
So I tried it
A little friendship, a little companionship, a little weed
At first just a little, with A_Friend in her room. She had a sign that said Stay High, Stay
Free
When I first saw that, I thought “How can that be, needing something to be free?”
But ah the warm sweet seductive power you exerted over me, oh the desire to be Free
was so strong
Your zigs filled my zags and I felt linear
Normal
And I had friends who didn’t care if I were weird
Perhaps they didn’t care anything about me at all
And so junior year began and I lived near A_Friend, and she taught me about acid, and
crystal and parts of the Grateful Dead that were not Hank Williams
She told me the hippie myths of the 1960’s
Not my 1960’s at all, Watts and Detroit burning, riots, the caucuses that could not be
sat at the Democratic Convention because of Mayor Daley, how sad we were that Julian
Bond was so young, brown outs and looting in New York, civil rights legislation and
being clean for Gene, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shot, his dream long
gone, leaving us with Jesse Jackson, marches in the street and yet fierce opposition to
busing, reading “Black Like Me” and throbbing to the pain of being human
The only part of Woodstock I understood was “Give me an F” and “I Dreamed I Saw Joe
Hill Last Night”
And so I followed where A_Friend led, into sex and drugs and rock and roll
And soon I forgot all about my cello, my politics, my James Baldwin, my violent and
abusive home, my scholarships, my so much greater than average success ratio
I felt happy, I felt one with my Rebel Family, no longer Meek and Mild, no longer
Blubber, Flubber or Fatso, I too was cool and bad
My family who had stopped being friendly when I said sanctimonious things like “I don't
need drugs, I’m high on life”
And sadly for me, I had been….
Herbie, you completed me, you gave my first thing to say socially
“Wanna smoke a joint”
“Wanna smoke a bowl”
“I got some dope, want to get high”
And oh I felt so popular
My family did everything they could to make sure I had the BEST weed, it became part
of Sally to have the best, instead of to Be the best
And oh how I smoked it
I lived on codeine cough syrup and weed, pot, dope, herb, doobie, bong hits, blunts,
spliffs
I liked everything better, I felt comfortable and surrounded
As long as I was not out
It didn’t take long before I felt oh what a drag, one more way for a day to be bad, an
“out” day
But I loved you so, I hung in there, coloring and playing jacks and wearing ever sillier
clothes, listening to only music with a back beat, dancing ever wilder, and making up
goofier and goofier names
Fifi, GoBe Dessert, Trout
I threw out good habits, practicing, industriousness, chastity, any sense there was a
future in front of me
They hadn’t served me well anyway
But was that just you, Madame Sativa, in the way?
How could my salvation be my downfall?
And so I clung, not seeing past the next stone
High and waiting for something good to happen
And it did regularly, the phone rang and the Mowie-wowie had come in, the Tied-Stick,
the Columbo Gold, the hash
Sometimes it was a person knocking on the door, arriving by bus in South America
But always there was YOU, signaling the good times
And I loved my friends, my husband
Who encouraged me to smoke and be cool
While he drank
And so time went on, and you changed the direction of my life
And I followed like a little slave
Even into the depths of the Tenderloin and a homeless shelter, me my kids my
battering ram and you, who made it all “cool”
I even gave you up from time to time for short times, to produce kids, to go to computer
school, to have a straight lover
See, I could do without you!
Until it seemed something was missing, always, I’d feel in my psyche for the missing link
And a soft voice would say “we wouldn’t feel this if we were high, we wouldn’t be alone”
So I’d make the call, sometimes 41 times a day if the Pusher Man wasn’t there
I left messages for the Doctor, I was the Doctor
And sometimes even I would think, why am I letting these people in my life, my home,
why are they awake at 2M, calling me
But I knew pot was about sharing, and I knew I shared my pain with the Pusher Man so I
allowed it, he allowed it, the collective We allowed it
Since sharing = Socialiasm = God’s work on earth
I’d hide from my parents, my job, my doctor
My kids
Waiting for them to be old enough to “understand”
And back I went
And stayed faithfully
As misery grew and grew and grew
Like my couch sitting junk food eating do nothing hate everything, know nothing but
insecurity big fat body
My I want to DIE body
Oh sweet fragrant lover, I knew it couldn’t be YOU
You were still my salvation, my coolness
So I tried anything else
Hiking, being a dead head, not being a dead head, giant car drives, visiting, not visiting,
$100 phone bills, not speaking for weeks, being a workaholic, getting fired
Mostly I smoked, because all my money was going up in smoke
I decided I didn’t like shows, restaurants, establishment books, movies, mountains,
beaches
I liked sitting on my bed hating life and crying and falling sleeping with a pipe in my
hand only to wake to the thought “I want to die”
Waking in a smelly house where every sharp object, every flat surface had sticky resin
on it some where
Because your resin was so cool, only MY drug left enough of itself around to cure the
stomach ache that came from not having the real part of you, show me the keg that has
good beer the next morning, I used to croon
And speaking of stomachs, MJ, you traitorous bitch
You led me to a world where I learned about tofu and brown rice
And then you Bitch Goddess you, you confused me so
I was so lost in the supermarket
All I could grab was brightly colored Doritoes for dinner, a bag of candy to hide the
shame in and Diet 7-Up so God please my belly would not hurt
I began to be suspect of you
But everything hurt so bad
Ah, I realized, I am not spending enough time with my friend, there are some times I am
still GETTING high which means there are times I must be STRAIGHT
And I knew I hated that
You took over my life, my budget, my home, my mind, my job, my truck, my relationships
And what did you EVER give in return?
A headache, a bounced check, manipulative acquaintances, dry burned eye balls, lip
crinkles, sore throats, hearing problems, fear, arrestability, that hard spot on my thumb
from flicking the lighter, SHAME
And so many real problems
Which type of pipe worked best, was it friends smoking my weed costing me money,
why can’t I roll a joint as well as others.... where is my pipe, my lighter .... should I go
into work, and client sites illegally carrying, or risk my Friend being stolen from my
truck.... trips across the Bay Bridge at any inconvenient hour, needing ever growing
amount of toll money, sticky resin on every flat surface, on every pointed object....
where to hide the weed so I would be awake at least 5 minutes, WHERE’D I HIDE THE
WEED… did some one TAKE IT???
I endlessly pondered
Since I am hopelessly broken, what is the RIGHT amount of pot to smoke, the “fix-it:
quantity, the sum to be happy stash?
And always the answer was simply More
You bitch, you home wrecker
Do you know what you did to me, are YOU what cost me a job? I am cold in Alameda, I
have sub standard health care, I work awful hours, I felt I’ lost everyone, and knowing
why I’d wanted them
I gave you FAITH, you made me FAITHLESS
I gave up so much for you and in the end
No matter how much weed I smoked, no matter how much of my life my time I gave you
You did NOT change the world
It didn’t seem to change at ALL no matter how much I gave you!
Did you LIE TO ME, you promised so much and gave so little?
I HATE you and will never speak to you again
You are so SELFISH, everything always has to be about YOU
If I was shy, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was scared, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was hungry, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was horny, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was lonely, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was nervous, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was proud, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was happy, you said “smoke a bowl”
If I was in trouble, you said “smoke a bowl”
What did YOU even CARE that you created fear, shyness, loneliness, nervousness,
trouble????
I hope you remain in ASHES forever, never getting anywhere near me AGAIN for as
long as the world is round, the sky is blue and God is in his Heaven
You hear me?
Go away from my door, get out of my head, get out of my wallet, off my surfaces, out of
my lungs, give me back unlined lips, unmarked thumbs, no worry when a cop goes by,
my sweet intelligent un-moody happy sunny SELF
You sweet smelling WHORE, plague some one else and leave me in PEACE
It just doesn’t work for me anymore, and I have to protect me
I can’t be Yours and be Mine too
And I pick Me
Not You, my drunken herb goddess
Fare thee well, go away at your own pace but GO
And don’t even look back
Unless you want to be flipped off, chased off, all the hounds of hell set upon you
You lower than snake’s belly vermin, you crooked as a dog’s hind leg TRAITOR