somuchrain

There's something about constantly bleaching a mattress that was found in a basement with only one light bulb. The mattress lay in a puddle, molding. I was sick of sleeping on a pallet. Well, that's a lie. I was sick of her seeing me sleep on a pallet. I even found a box-spring in the puddle. The single light bulb had burnt out by the time we got to the box-spring point in our relationship. But the mattress is the important part. It's a double mattress, perhaps a queen, but I'm not sure of the difference. It was a pain in the ass to get up the seven concrete steps and around the corner, through the yard, and onto my porch, where I could bleach it.

The wind was fucking freezing, that nasty fucking mid-winter wind that blows through screens and even through windows, to make you huddle up in bed, if you had a bed. Sometimes you just have a pallet. I put the mattress up on its side against the wall and washed it down with a bleach covered rag, focusing on the water stains, and on the red blotch, that could only be someone else's menses. Then I sprayed it with water. Then I sprayed it with bleach again. And let it dry. My pallet, at this time, was against the wall by my closet, across from the VCR, stereo and window. I sat there and smoked, while the winter wind blew the bleach off of the mattress and into my bedroom. My dog sniffed and I was scared it would hurt him, as I have been every time I've bleached it since then.

He pisses on it, my dog, occasionally, when I leave him alone for too long, or when he's mad at me. I drop drinks and food on it, as the bed is also our couch, and only place to sit, and as I'm clumsy. It gets sweat on, and bled on, and come on, so I bleach it pretty often, and turn it over. I never turn over the box spring, though. Are you supposed to rotate them? I haven't had a bed of my own in five years and four months, give or take a few days. There's something about sleeping on found mattresses or pallets, in borrowed bedding, that makes me uncomfortable. It seems immature. A dirtbag. My father keeps threatening to buy me a bed, but I don't want one. I'd rather him give me something more personal, like a letter, or love. I'm sick of utilitarian parenthood, clearly. I don't want crock pots or gift certificates or money or a box spring. I haven't seen my dad on my birthday for five years, not that I've seen him on his in just as long (slightly more, actually). I'm not even certain when it is, and don't have his PDA to remind me. I'd imagined things would be different by now.