From Open City #18 (more poetry by Ryan Schneider is in the print version; click here to order)

 

Mattress

Ryan Schneider

 

Why we sweat, at this time:

Stuck to a nude mattress, with surely the glad energy of at least eighty nasty lovers fucking on it,

the sperm of wild children and dogs,

flattened from jumping,

sneezed on, been so wasted on, fought on, fingered on, secrets exposed, like twenty alligators receiving HIV tests

I have made one promise on this surface,

to be less of a nihilist and more like an anarchist.

I do not keep promises as a rule, but require sleep,

even in this maniacal heat.

How many angsty journals might have flowered themselves on this

thinning mattress?

Peaceful beneath the curling brown Slayer poster,

and dripping from a slit wrist—

one simple thought uttered in teenage blood:

GO GET FUCKED. The protagonist’s long frizzy hair

covers his face as his dying head reaches the pillow.

And the world can now become a safer place.

Life got incredible on this mattress. The first time I put it in and it

shrank away fearful, the next time we are on the floor panting like

birthing mothers.

Rug burn

or the pimp polishing his new gun,

or a dear friend getting naked,

or a hillbilly raping a plush toy

Our mattress

we soak on,

sweaty with the exquisite, pretty puddles who rest

Nestling into this awful season and blaming everything on the "fucking sun," which can be a wet dog, which can be sexy, squeamish

like the pinkish imprint of a wrinkled sheet on an otherwise creamy

shoulder.

This is our new mess