To happiness
I got a new bed cuz my last one was haunted. It was my dad’s bed first and he got it from somebody before him. He went back to Detroit, then it was mine.
I lugged it around town with me from apartment to apartment. From Burbank to K-town to Hollywood, I dragged it along.
I fucked my home-girl on it a few weeks back.
The next day, when I was cleaning up the mess, I peeled back the sheet to see a mattress pad covered in stains. My home-girl had called them types of stains, maps of Africa. Like if you fuck someone so good, you leave wet marks on the sheets that look like a map of Africa.
That’s what I’m left with - maps of Africa.
I’m here all alone with my maps.
I had collected, tell tale signs of fucking all over my bed. I’ve forgotten half the women who contributed to my mattress, they’ve moved on and forgot about me too. But their marks’ were still there.
Their marks didn’t matter my but ex’s did and those were there too. I stood there in the bedroom of my new 2 bedroom apartment, the one I was supposed to had gotten with Julie, wet towel in my hand, sopping up this mess I made with somebody else.
I thought back to an argument we had had. She was sitting on that bed in Burbank, we were yelling back and forth. I was hurt about some lame she had slept with when we were broken up. I was mad she told me about it, I didn’t need to hear about that shit. I was grilling her. She sat there defiant.
I was at my wits end when I said, “You know what? Fuck it, I don’t give a fuck who you fuck.” I was lying, I did. I said, “You think I care who you fuck? I don’t give a shit. You know how many girls I fucked right there where you sittin’? Right there, in that spot, where you sleep every night? You laying on that shit, you know how many?”
She stood up and left the room. I stalked after her and we kept fighting.
I was looking at those stains, thinking about that fight, looking at all that DNA on my bed. Thinking about what a cruel thing that was to say to her, to say to someone I loved.
I rolled up the mattress pad walked down to the dumpster and threw it out.
I didn’t wanna be able to say that to my next girl.
So I got a new bed now. I’ll make new memories. I’m starting over.
I saw Julie at Target today. She’s lost weight. She was buying travel size soap and toothpaste. She was reading the labels and didn’t see me. I didn’t want her to. What’s there to say? Nothing.
I turned around and left the store.
I thought about where she might be going with her travel size toothpaste.
Then I pushed that out of my mind, told myself to harden the fuck up. I chose this and I don’t regret it.
She started over and I’m starting over too.
