Memory Foam

It is the 17th of July, 2020. I have not eaten in 3 days. I have not slept in more, or so I imagine. There is a cruel irony in counting sleepless nights in days. I have become one with the bed, and though I do not sleep, I do not move. The greatest battle becomes the one with box springs and broken slats. 

I am transported, in waking dreams, to 2011, and in my self-imposed prison, on Strathfillan Road, in a box within a box, inside my state-mandated prison, in Church Vale, in the depths of a valley, wallowing in godlessness, seeking salvation from a past I have been running from for longer than I could possibly believe. 

Face down on a rental mattress, holding the memories of those who came before, I suffocate on the memories left in mattresses rented in faraway lands. The misshapen, discoloured, broken-in and broken-down, used and unloved, long beyond their warranties, the seven-year itch you sleep with each night. 

There is the mattress where my heart broke, each spring weighed down with the memories of a girl with nothing left to give, asking a boy with nothing left to take how to make him stay. Where the springs held the words, “My feelings changed,” the words “We never spoke about the future,” the words “You expect too much of people.” 

There is the mattress, one room over, sagging with the depths of despair put upon it, tramadol nights, overdoses, screams for help, where at the foot of the bed I stood next to the shady figure in the hat, who only could see where I told her it would be okay, where I lied to her, where I lied to myself, as I let my blood boil when the boy through the next wall did not share my enthusiasm for watching others self destruct. 

There is the mattress in a hostel, where no meant no, unless it got lost in translation, then no meant maybe, and maybe means tease, and teases get what they deserve, or so I told myself, choking back the words to fight, afraid of how they will mangle in translation. 

There is the mattress across the dorm, in that same hostel, where my hands shook, hovering over the dial-pad, afraid to call home for fear of retribution, the damage my reputation would have done to me, not the damage yet to come, for fear that my conqueror would be viewed as my conquest, because girls like me enjoy poor life choices, and live for hard dick and hard liquor.

There is a mattress in the shadow of a castle, in the home I fled to when it all fell apart, the mattress where I cried as my loyalty to self-destruction was challenged once again. Where I couldn’t say what had happened, so I said nothing. 

The mattress I did not invite him back to, as I hit my own self-destruct button outside the station. 

That same mattress we tumbled back to, together, throughout the year, where I dreamt of him, where I never said ‘I love you’ again, but I thought it every day. 

The mattress where I hid under duvets after a chance encounter led to cinematic romance, that off screen, looks like stalking, a stranger at the intercom, his lust crushing my chest from the downstairs door, with nightmares of how he found me, and questions about why he bothered. 

The mattress where I let the first worst man back in, having found the strength to have something worth taking, and giving it all too willingly, only to be left as empty as before.

The mattress at the end of the train line, where someone I did not deserve stroked my hair despite it all, and told me it would get better, that he wished he lived somewhere I didn’t hate, that I would be free soon enough. 

The mattress where I said I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t want to live, where two lost souls shared cocktails of bad advice, drenched in rum and coated in butter, and warm bodies clung together in the dark just to feel alive.

The mattress where he never said ‘I love you’ again, but where his actions said enough. 

While I am sprawled face down on the last rental mattress, locked down and worn down, I wonder about the memories I have slept on in this bed. The old tenants, the traumas, the trances, the Tracy Emin moments. Unmade. I wonder about the memories I have slept on in my consciousness. They envelope me, swaddled in memorial quilts, honouring the ghosts of a past that led to this present. 

On 17th July, 2020, lifting my head from my rented mattress, opening twitter, a DM slide as a remedy, a message of belated and unexplained gratitude. A response, “I have always liked and respected you.” Writing back, “You taught me a lot about liking and respecting myself,” because you can’t write “you saved my life,” because even though it’s true, lives have gone on, separately, for far too long to say anything now. 

In the aftermath of it all, I pull myself upright, off of my rental mattress. I go for a run. I see mattress after mattress fly-tipped in the street, and wonder about the memories imbued within them. Lost alters to lives left behind. 

Hand-in-hand with the love that came with the light at the end of the tunnel, I go to Dreams Bed Superstore. A computer tells us that we need a very soft mattress, but I know that is not true, and I am the master of my own destiny today.

We buy the hardest mattress we can find. It is ours, we own it. I will not let the foam hold those memories any more.

I awake the next morning, a good night’s sleep, a new mattress, a fresh start, and the love beside me. 

Helen Bowie (she/they) is a writer, performer and charity worker based in London. Their debut poetry pamphlet WORD/PLAY is available from Beir Bua press, and their work has featured in a variety of journals and festival. She is founding editor of Tattizine, a potato themed art and lit zine. Helen is Extremely Online at twitter.com/helensulis