I got a new mattress today.

Fresh, clean, and filled with springs

To hold me up when I’m unable.

 

My new mattress hugs me goodbye

Every day, when I leave to go to school,

And catches me in its openness while I jump

Into it when I come home.

 

My mattress absorbs my tears

As the drops hit the linen sheets

After they fall from my face.

My journal knows my memories

But my mattress knows the truth.

 

I got my new mattress a year ago.

A little sunken down,

but I’ve flipped it-

turned it around,

just like my attitude towards life.

 

My mattress knows my first kiss.

It heard the pucker of our lips,

And felt the gentle waves of

Energy as we floated down

onto its pillow top.

 

My mattress knows when I stay up late.

And why.

It listens to my secrets that I murmur

To myself.

 

My mattress had to be flipped again.

I’ve been sleeping too much,

My mother said.

But when my dreams are better

Than the reality I live,

A slumber that lasts forever

Is something my mattress will give.

 

My mattress hears me sigh when I see

An empty space above its ocean

Of blue sheets as I look over to my side.

Enough water to wade in, but no room to swim.

 

My mattress knows my first love.

It knows the person I trust the most,

And the person who stole my innocence.

It’s a secret that my mattress will

Take to the grave.

 

My mattress is sagging,

And is kind of flattening.

My mattress is old, and all the wiser.

I’m leaving for college tomorrow,

And while my time in this house will end

I know I’ll lose my closest friend,

The one who knows

My life,

My love,

My tears,

And my blood.

 

.           .           .           .          

 

I got a new mattress today.

Old, covered, and colored with grey.

It doesn’t hug me, it doesn’t care.