I was homeless just after I turned eighteen. Not living on the street homeless, but living with friends because I had nowhere else to go homeless. I lived with a girl who’d been my friend since the fifth grade. She and I sometimes got into arguments, so I’d go to the local pool hall where most of the kids in town hung out. Another friend of mine was dating a guy who always came to the pool hall with her, but she finally broke up with him because he kept asking her to put out and she didn’t want to. I ended up falling in like with him. I hung out with him for a few weeks before he invited me to move in with him one day after my friend and I had another argument. I cleaned his house, cooked him dinner, had everything nice and neat for him when he got home from college classes every day, took care of him when he was sick, did more than I should have done. I felt like things were going well. They were, for a while.

Changing the words of a song to better fit your life is something everyone has done. Everyone has at least one song they call “my song” and everyone is guilty of using that song to explain a portion of their life. For me, Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch” was the song I used as my “ego” song. He and I used to play this song over and over and sing the words to each other. He’d sing the original words while I changed them. My version went something like “Hey – I’m a crazy bitch, but I’m so good / you’re on top of this and you dream of doing me all night, with scratches all down your back, I kept you right on…” Boy, did I ever. I gave him everything, but when it came to our sex life I was the ruler. We lived together for almost three months with no arguments, no fights, and no problems. Or so I thought.

Apparently he’d been talking to another girl who didn’t understand why I was living with him, unmarried and having sex with him. Somehow she managed to convince him he was immoral because of me and that he needed to change his ways. So he decided he didn’t want to be with me any more, and he kicked me out. His reason? He “couldn’t keep up with me” and he “thought I could do better,” he “wasn’t ready for a relationship” and he “knew that I’d find someone who could love me for me and not want anything to change.” Then he had his father tell me I had to move out and not come back, that I shouldn’t call him ever again. Once again I was homeless, all because I gave him everything he wanted and only asked for one thing in return.

Now, as far as I know, my ex is still living at his dad’s house. He has no life there, no friends, nothing. He’s dating a girl who won’t have sex with him because she wants to get married first. As far as I know he hasn’t had sex since he was with me, nearly a year ago. Me, I’m with someone new, happier than I’ve ever been. But I can’t listen to “Crazy Bitch” because it makes me feel sick to my stomach – you want to talk about ruining a song for someone? This one went beyond ruined. We had played it at least ten times a day. I can still sit down and sing every single word without the music and with everyone around me making noise or trying to distract me. If I lose my place I know exactly where I was. And every time I think of the words to that song I want to throw up.

I saw him and his new girlfriend a little while ago. Wouldn’t you know it, I happened to have that CD sitting next to me in the case in my car. I had the top to my convertible down so I quickly threw the CD in the player. I stood up in the seat and blasted the song and sang all the words directly to him – just the way I’d done a million times when I lived with him. His face was so red; he looked like he was going to die of embarrassment. Even though I can’t stand the song any more, it was worth hearing it one last time just to see the look on his face, his new girlfriend standing there staring, completely dumbfounded. Hey, I’m a crazy bitch.