More writing from the wanna-be best seller at Sixfingeredsword.My bed is still the same. The same sheets and pillows from a year ago still adorn it. There are all the same stains from spilled liquor and the hole from that cigar that I accidentally poked through the comforter is still there. I smoke more now. Remember how much you hated that? It helps calm my nerves, sometimes, and sometimes it makes me edgier. The same mattress rests on top of the same box spring, but something has changed. Something is different and I know what it is.
My job is the same. I can draw parallels between most of my coworkers here and the people I knew back home. I'm doing the same job, but a little less now. I have more help making ends meet than I did when you and I were we.
My city is the same, though I don't live in the same city. I live in a suburb not too far from a high school. Sometimes, I see the jail-bait beauties stroll by my house with mock casualness. I can see the sweat on their brow and the way their heavy book bags try to pull them to the ground. I know they toil to carry their schoolwork home, but I don't call their bluff. I don't want them to lose their cool.
Everyday is different. There isn't anything missing, in fact, my life is more full. I may work less, but I have friends and drugs to help me pass the time when before I only had you. It isn't better or worse, just different.
Sure, I used to think it was worse. My bed seemed so spacious without you warm body to throw an arm around. My bathroom looked so empty without your bottles of lotion on the counter and the Tilex under the counter seems so lonely without the open package of Tampex to keep it company. However, now, after so long without you I realize it isn't better or worse, only different.
Sometimes I miss you. When I watch the early morning news I still think of that morning we spent together after spending all night at the beach. I had fun wearing nothing but cowboy boots, boxer shorts and hand cuffs, waving to the groggy truckers as we drove home at six in the morning.
Do you remember that night at the beach? When you pointed out the place where you and another had made love, drunk? It hurt me that you were thinking of another when you were with me, but I didn't let it show. I laughed and changed the subject. Do you remember?
Do you remember when you promised to make love, but drank to much and instead we talked about each other all night long? I remember. I remember that you regretted less than I did, even though you'd been alive twice as long.
Do you remember the night we ended? When I caught you with an ex-lover, and you pleaded innocence? I knew you were lying. I banished you from my bed, and you never returned. Those first few weeks were hardest, my old lover. I used to think things had gotten so worse without you, but now I realize that things aren't worse, only different.
