The Guinea Pig Generation
a Poem
The guinea pig generation
One of the solutions for acid reflux disease
is to sleep on a wedge pillow,
but this comes with its own share
of discomfort. Sure, it helps keep the acid
safely inside your stomach, but some mornings
you wake unable to turn your head
due to the crick in your neck,
and you spend the entirety of three days
wondering at the etymology of this phrase,
is it because someone misheard the word “creak”
for instance, or could it be an allusion
to the steady flowing stream of nerve pain
that swells and recedes like a creek
connecting all the fibrous tissues between
your skull and your sense of the outer world,
viewed through a time-lapsed video
turning torrential rains into stutters?
And let’s not forget the awkwardness
of people’s stares when they learn the reason
for your Frankenstein-ian posture,
asking the inevitable question,
“aren’t wedge pillows used for sex?”
but you don’t really feel like explaining
that you haven’t had sex
since you bought this fucking pillow
because it also acts like a dam
erected on the mattress between yourself
and anyone who might wish to touch you,
as if you now sleep on an island
of memory foam, and everyone else sleeps
in the house at the end of the street,
dreaming of participating in clinical studies
promising a cure for clinical depression
in the form of little white pill
shaped like an egg lain by…
