Beyoncé
3 years later
I look to the woman kissing up on my neck.
It gives me the wrong kinds of shivers.
Her arms are heavily coated in tattoos, her chin rests on my shoulder, hair is dyed a cherry red, and it pools around her face, lightly sticking to our wet bodies.
I push it away to see her better. While she's beautiful, I'm repulsed. I've wasted time. For both of us.
She hums against my back and I feel even more uncomfortable.
My responsibilities come back to me in an instant. Dread of having them comes as well. I've never been truly satisfied since I've come home, emotionally, physically and mentally.
To the outside I'm an ex-con who turned her life around, a success story, a businesswoman who's triumphing. But on the inside I'm working with hope and pussy-ness
On a stormy night 2 1/2 years ago, I realized I was too scary to kill myself. I'm stuck here sticking it out on my own.
It's not a secret I miss Megan, but my luck in scavenging the state of Texas and the US in it's entirety has been unsuccessful.
A small part of me is hopeful, and a bigger part of me died a slow death when I got the news of her release.
(I'd slipped up with Higgins and he laughed in my face about how he didn't give steps for visitation to her. I'd been in jail for ten years and didn't really know how to manipulate the internet. Solange even helped me reluctantly but there was no luck).
We looked up every variation of Megan Pete possible in a username on almost every social media site.
I was in a low enough place that I went to church with my mama and cried at the pastors feet for some form of peace.
Not everyone knows what it's like to be an ex-con. Not every therapist is nearly convincing enough to make me want to drive hours away for a session.
Originally I wanted to let myself to go to shit after release day. Mama and Kelly didn't let me.
For a second I focus on the woman kissing me again and kinda enjoy her weight against my body, the feeling of another human being, but not of the person I truly want by my side. It's all fine until she ruins it with a kiss to my jawline.
"Mmm, hey baby." She says in a high-ass voice.
"Hey." I respond in a blunt voice.
"You're mean."
Who is this girl anyways? A rival business owner's daughter? She's snooty. Gotta be a rich girl. The only reason I picked her out of all the bitches in the club was because of her height.
I open my mouth to respond but stop myself.
She tries to squeeze my tit to get me to go for another round.
I'm immediately repulsed and push her off me. She lightly hits the shower wall.
My body is heating up, not from lust, but being overwhelmed.
When I started to sleep with women all Willy-nilly, I knew I was gonna set myself up sometime down the road. I went on anyways. I'm feeling the consequences now, in this very moment.
As a matter of fact I'm fully disgusted. This is my doing.
I huff nearly at the same time she does.
I try to get her arms away from my waist gently enough so her lightweight drunk ass won't slip and fall in the shower.
"Hey!" She slaps my arm.
"C'mon, I gotta go." I slightly whine as I look at her.
I'm not lying, but I need her to leave urgently. I've been working on getting my flings to leave without yelling. One told me that I needed to be sweeter and for some reason it hit me hard.
I stand in front of the chick.
"Hey, c'mon." I awkwardly fix my own hair.
She looks at me in a daze.
Right, she thinks I must be the love of her life because I'm kind of(?) taking care of her post-fuck.
"I'll get you water, but you gotta hurry up."
She playfully shoves me and I take the lead and get out the shower in search of a towel.
_____
I sit in my car frustrated after what was this morning.
I took some of my mail with me to work and my hastiness while driving nearly causes me to crash and my coffee nearly spills everywhere, the mail taking flight in the front seats.
Feels like being in a money machine at a fair but instead all I caught was a letter addressed to me from a Shawn Carter.
There's no way I can try to find positivity in this.
Pisses me off.
Shawn has been rotting in jail since.
He's pretty much living there for life.
A dead CEO and an uncle under his belt.
Over the past 3 years the guilt has worn off just enough to where I can allow myself to split the guilt on both of us. Both of us are responsible.
He also shouldn't have gotten hard headed and come to the house.
Even I could see that through my post-prison-finding-self crisis. It's a give and take but at the same time not what I needed after a stressful monday morning. I judge and shut myself up.
My face gets hot and the first few tears come from my eyes, totally unsolicited.
I wipe them but it's time for me to drive as the light turns green.
As much as I feel I brought this into myself you can only spend so much time blaming yourself, right? After a certain point you need to stop degrading yourself in order to validate the inconveniences that come through your life.
I've been home 3 years, I should've hit this epiphany within the first 6 months of getting here.
I sloppily suck up my tears and quietly sob, taking advantage of my tinted windows.
It's like this almost every monday morning. And I'm finally seeing how shitty it is. How horrible it fucking feels. How I'm 30 and doing this shit.
I swear in my head there's always an inspirational auntie drilling words of wisdom into my head. It's finally this morning that I realize her message in full.
I let out a snotty cough and turn into the parking lot of my establishment.
Damn, Beyoncé, change.