The apartment has that
New plaster smell.
He hulls the crisp, white mattress
Into the middle of the
Hard wood floor,
And she takes his hand
Pulls him onto their bed,
Head on his chest,
And into their world they go.
And this is what they have
To lay their love on.
Ten months later
He’s chain smoking on a
***** stained mattress
In the middle of the apartment
Lined in yesterday’s pizza
And an array of old, used
Excuses and socks;
And she’s trying to separate
His clothes from hers,
And at the same time
Pick up the shattered pieces
Of their little world,
Littered underneath the
Tattered, filthy sheets
To the left of the overflowing,
makeshift, ashtray-hole-in-the-floor.
And this
This pathetic, worn out mattress
Stuffed with broken promises
and discarded dreams,
is all they have to lay their lives on.