Blame it on the Mattress to Break Your Fall

You're driving down the freeway with me, all limbs and organs and skin and bones, some missing and some not, stuffed in the space between your parking brake and old-fashioned window crank.  I'm glowering at you like I always do, though this time it's because of all the shit that's in your backseat that's got my chair propping up so my knees, all cherry-red and tattooed with the imprint of springs from your Polish mattress, are rubbing against the windshield.  I shift uncomfortably in the cramped little ditch on wheels that you've shoved me in, trying to find a nice crook to fit the underside of my calves, and try to pretend that I don't care.  That I don't care about you or the car or your damned masochist's mattress that creaked and swayed with every unwholesome thrust made between the two of us. 1

I sneak a glance your way timidly, not wanting you to find out, because I'm supposed to be not caring, and find you all smiles and giggles like a fucking school girl.  I snarl at you, though only through the reflection in the window, because I wasn't supposed to be looking at you to begin with, and think: 2

Of course you're happy. 3

You weren't the one on the bottom. 4

And we're racing up a spiralling mountain, and I can't help but think that with you, it's always spirals.  It's always been some tedious, protesting, half-drag, half-waltz up the slopes, with our thighs aching and our tongues jutting out, trying to catch what little water might miraculously fall from the skies.   5

It's always been unwanted, yet still too deliberate like shooting yourself in the foot to get off the battlefield only this bullet's not in my foot.  It's somewhere lodged between the curves of my bared ribs.  And that's no good at all, I suppose, because I'm still on the battlefield, dragging my half-eaten corpse through the rounds of artillery.  And with every whizzing sound that flies past the shell of my ear, I'd think:  oh this'll be the one. 6

And then it won't. 7

And I'll still be stuck here trudging through the slush of torn muscles and exploded limbs, watching everything spiral down around me, round and round.  And it'll just keep going like that until everyone's cold and dead and still.  Everyone but you. 8

And, of course, me. 9

And that's how it always is.  We climb and we climb and we pray to merciful God that it'll be the end, that someone's going to finally come up and goodnaturedly stab us in the heart and be done with it.  And then when we finally get up to the top, we fall. 10

And we land. 11

We land on springtime grass, yellowed and frail from winter snows.  We land on raggedy carpets, stained with semen and red wine or maybe blood.  We land on the leather-stitched seats, old and antique, with their cigarette burns.  We land on sofa cushions, kitchen counters, Polish mattresses. 12

But whatever we land on, it's not hard and cold and unforgiving.  And it doesn't break us, just fractures us. 13

And we're spiralling up again now. 14

And I'm thinking that the thing I hate most about you is that. 15

You make me hope it will never end.16