I've had the same mattress for 16 years.
It is filled with memories, my best to my worst ideas, and all of my dead parts.
Most thoughts come to me when my eyes are closed.
this mattress is a journal. a scrap book. a photo album.
so many shapes are imprinted in this old thing.
but that's not the point of it.
It scares me, it does. There's something dangerous about it.
maybe it's the fact that I might never wake up, maybe it's because I'm most vulnerable when unconscious.
no one can control their head when they're asleep.
and my mattress is infested with anxiety, it always tremors.
it makes me feel as if this sleep should be eternal, as if my pillows will suffocate me while I'm dreaming.
but my mattress is still comfortable.
it's always been there when I need it, it is always available.
it is inviting to others who decide to lie upon it, with squeaks and calming gestures.
sometimes people say they don't want to get out of it and sometimes I allow them to stay.
but that's not the point of it either.

the point is him.
the point has always been him.
the way he fell back into the blankets and the way he left his cologne on the sheets.
he stayed there for a while.
my whole being was sure that he was going to move in, that I'd be waking up to him every morning through forever.
but that sadly wasn't the case.
I have to be asleep to be able to hold him now.
but I remember the past, running my fingers along his arms, explaining to him that such a thing as veins scares me but his look like lighting.
he ran electricity down my back every time he embraced my body, he was the unexpected storm, but I decided to lay in the rain.
when he offered me an umbrella, I smiled a no.
and he apologized if I ever felt like I was drowning.
so when he decided to leave me, it was a flash flood.
flash back.
to the mattress. my comfortable place of belonging.
flash forward.
to the mattress. the throne for all of my sobbing.
you see, I carry this mattress with me everywhere I go.
my skull is the box spring, I am the bed frame.
you see, it's a metaphor.
it isn't actual fabric, or a place for resting, it rests in the back of my head.
and everyone else has left my head but he tosses and turns up there constantly.
and when I begin to think that maybe I just can't live without him, and that maybe I should end my own life because I'm not worth the space that I occupy, I swear I see his blue eyes staring into my dull ones, and I swear I hear him say
"baby, why don't you sleep on it?"