Me and my Couch and the Demon that lives in and beneath it (a poem)

Ooohhhh yeah. I sit on the couch. That’s the stuff.

I get comfortable.

I stretch out I lay down

It's just me.

I flip sides I watch tv I fall asleep

I wake up I regain feeling in my arm I sit up

Have I been on this couch for too long?

I’m going to stand up

Why would I ever leave this couch?

I refuse to check the time.

I’ll take another nap. That way I don’t have to think about how long I've been on this couch and how I'll never do anything ever.

Suddenly I get pulled through soft cushion and solid foundation and I am both within and below the couch. A couch demon has brought me to its underworld. At least it didn't make me move.

Oh, hey.

You think you can stay on this couch forever? Says the demon

No.

Why don’t you get up?

Why’d you make this couch so comfortable? I retort.

I sue the couch demon for making a product that feeds into my depression without providing any mental health support to go along with it.

The demon is bewildered

Neither of us has time to get a lawyer.

In court I challenge what the demon’s plan was anyway in bringing me into its world.

The demon says it would have made me feel really bad about being on the couch (psychological torture, it explains)

How naïve. How circular.

You think I’m not already making myself feel bad? You think that doesn’t just make me stay on the couch longer? I call the demon a fool.

The demon stays silent a while. It admits that it feels stuck in the world beneath and within the couch. It tells me,

I wanted a friend.

Well jeez. Now I do feel bad and I drop the charges against the demon and wonder if this was its plan all along.

My roommate gets home and I jump out of the couch and then off the couch. I go into the kitchen and act busy.

I stay off the couch for the next little while. I nap in my bed.

I clearly had overdone it, meeting the demon and all. Even though I did beat it in court and it had no real power to hold me beneath and within the couch.

I didn’t want to get sucked back in. I wondered if I bought a new couch if the demon would be there. If the demon were mine or the couch’s.

Eventually the couch demon sunk into itself, without the attention. My couch suddenly felt cold. I would sit on my couch for hours. I felt frustrated. I could never get comfortable.

So I got a new couch

I sit on the new couch. God, this is cozy.

I sit and wonder if the demon was thinking of me when it sunk into itself.

I wonder how long I can sit on this couch without needing to do anything. Without wanting to do anything. I wonder what will happen

The next time I sink in.

-

The next time I sink in the demon is different. It doesn’t challenge me,

I’m offended.

It’s bored

Of me? Of its demon life? Of this new couch? Already?

I ask it,

So I can stay on this couch forever then?

I’m not the boss of you, it retorts

Will you stay in and below this couch forever?

Maybe. What’s it to you?

Have you ever been outside and above this couch?

I can’t imagine it’s anything much better.

What do you imagine?

I don’t bother, usually.

The couch demon and I hover in silence.

You got any snacks? I ask

The couch demon brings me crunchy salty crackers.

Wow. I admit, these are great

I make them from the crumbs in the couch, the demon says proudly.

Gross

Though I know I was the one who dropped the crumbs to begin with.

Every once and a while I get pulled through the couch. I hang out with the new demon and we eat crumb crackers together and don't talk about much.

It's boring. Aggravating.

I ask the demon if it ever knew any other couch demons.

No, I just live in the underworld beneath and within this couch, how would that even happen?

I drop it.

I figure out how to pull myself through the couch. I do it all the time. The couch demon thinks I'm obsessed with it. There isn't enough time between visits to accumulate crumbs to make the crackers.

The couch demon tells me I should get a new couch.

Do you know how expensive couches are?

Of course not, it replies.

Well, they're very expensive.

If you don't get a new couch I will sink into myself because I cannot take it anymore.

I'm stunned.

I threaten to take the couch demon to court because it's breaking the rules, I swear it's breaking the rules.

The couch demon laughs, then sighs.

Whatever, it says.

Fine.

I keep the couch and I wait for the couch demon to sink into itself

So now it's just me and I sit down and lay down and flip sides and watch tv but I can't get comfortable I can't get a new couch I can't get a new demon.