My Home, My Mattress

The bed is not a bed.
It is a swamp,
a blackened sponge
swallowing the flood of me,
every tear a seed
sprouting rot in the mattress.

Pillows twist into faces,
mouths gasping silently,
cheeks stained with the salt
I pressed into them.
I clutch them like corpses,
soft and limp,
their silence heavier than screams.

The blankets are a labyrinth--
I crawl inside and lose myself,
threaded halls of fabric
wrapping tighter, tighter,
the air thinning,
my thoughts multiplying
like spiders in the dark.

The bed breathes when I don't.
It sighs with the weight of me,
creaks like bones beneath its skin.
Its wooden frame
is a ribcage closing in,
its springs a heartbeat
that isn't mine.

I am eaten slowly here,
dissolving night by night,
until only the echo of sobbing remains--
woven into the sheets,
stained into the seams,
a song the bed hums
long after I'm gone.