Another Side of the Mattress

I tried to get him to hit me today

I slapped him across the face

I told him I didn't love him anymore

I picked up a chair
And I threw it at him

But he wouldn't do it

Never met a guy I couldn't break before
But maybe he was already broken when I got him

Either way, he won't do it

So I came in here and laid my face down on the mattress
But it was too warm

I flipped it over
And put my face into the cool side of it

I imagined a bruise being there
Like the kind Tyler used to give me
When we'd fight

I'd lay just like this on the mattress
The bruise being cooled down
By its unused side

And he'd come kneel down behind me
And put his face into my back

Saying 'Sorry, sorry, sorry'

And I'd say 'Yeah, Tyler.  You are sorry'

But I'd take his hand and cup it around my breast
And we'd start to make love

The whole time me staring at my dresser
At a picture of us in the city
The night we got engaged

When Tyler left I called him a coward

I told him he was leaving because he couldn't fix himself
And he didn't even want to try

I spit in his face

But he was onto me by then
He knew what I wanted

The most I got was a shove
So he could grab his keys
And drive away

The divorce papers came a few weeks later
And that's when I had the accident

Woke up in the hospital
With my mother standing over me
Already telling me what a fuck-up I was
And didn't I know it?

Didn't I know that if I died
I still wasn't going to be my brother Chris
Who died when he was four

He died an innocent

If I died now, I'd just be another dead nobody

Mom said she wasn't about to fork over good money
For a nobody's funeral
So if I was going to kill myself
I'd better know that I was going in the ground wrapped up in a garbage bag

Oh, and by the way
Daddy's in the waiting room
But he's not coming in
Because hospitals make him nervous

When I started dating Gabe I told myself
That I acted the way I did with Tyler
Because he brought it out of me

That I learned to love the pain
Because that's all he could give me

I didn't realize how deeply I needed it

Not until the first time we made love
And I felt angry

I felt mad at him
For how nice he wanted it to be

Because he wanted to make love
Instead of just fuck me
Like I needed it

That's what I needed it to be

So after that I started taunting him
Hitting his buttons
Seeing if I could strike a match

But instead I just managed a magic trick

I turned him into my father

Holding a hat in a hospital waiting room
Wondering when he can leave

Today I went online and saw a picture of Tyler in New York
With some other girl, and I snapped

I went into the living room where Gabe was sitting
And I flipped the coffee table over

He didn't even move

I slapped
I yelled
I told him I'd leave him
If he didn't grow some balls
And act like a man

But he just sat there
Waiting to see how long it would be
Before the bad in me ran out

I felt like telling him I got miles

I got miles, and miles, and miles

I was still running down
When I knelt down next to the mattress

Like I used to while my mother was yelling at my father

Door to my room closed
Hand over the ear not pressed up against the mattress
Staring at my old dresser
Where Chris' picture is
The two of us at the lake
He ended up drowning in

Then the door would open
And my mother would be standing there

'You think I don't know you're listening,' she'd ask

And I'd hear that

Didn't matter how much I didn't want to
I'd hear it

Then she'd kneel down behind me
And grab me by the back of my neck

'I hope you're not praying,' she'd say, 'Because God already took the one He wanted.'

Then she'd get up
And leave
Slamming the door behind her

. . . . .

When Gabe came back from work
I was still kneeling
And my body was sore

It expected a beating
And when it didn't get it
It ached even worse

Gabe sat on the bed
And started stroking my hair
And all I could do was stare straight ahead
At a dresser with nothing on it

No pictures of people
To miss or remember

Gabe waited for me to say something

If there's one thing he's been doing
Since we started dating, it's wait

Everybody waits for me

To speak
To strike back
To settle down

Sometimes I feel like that's the only power I have

Making people wait

And sometimes when I'm looking across the surface of the mattress
I pretend I'm small, very small
Small enough that the mattress is a landscape
And I'm at the beginning of it

The bumps are rolling hills
The air above it is endless
The cool surface is cold, real cold--genuine

And I can go miles
Miles and miles
And never have to stop