mattress myth

my blanket is falling off the side of the world

to a primordial quagmire

in the dark.

Titans roam

beneath the bed,

mystery and fire,

memory and sight,

but their shapes are too ancient for my eyes

or my dreams

tumbling to instinctual terror,

the site of Tartarus, to parse.

I cannot look

and know,

but even though

the origin of the earth

dwells in myths–

turtles all the way down

or a Gaia out of Chaos–

the origin of my fears

is not just a story to me.

The Titans of my mind

were planted and never died,

they took over the world

where I wasn’t watching,

came creeping close

when I had my eyes closed.

This hour of the moonlight

is an expanding universe in and of itself

and

the raft of my mattress

makes a determined haven,

bobbing along,

losing blankets to primal waves

and my own kicking feet

to keep us light enough

lest we drown

to the next hungry turtle down.

***

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