The bed that wanted to rot

There was once a bed that wanted to rot
The poofed pillows and slathering of silk bedsheets and furniture polish that was lovingly applied
Only made the bed itchy and lonesome
For this bed wanted to rot
To be haphazardly thrown in the back of an old pickup truck
The mattress thought it would very much like the stains and oil it could lounge in
In the truck
To be sped down I-89 without buckles and restraints
Jolting merrily
Splintering with every speed bump
To fly
The feathers in the down pillows wanted nothing else but to be airborne once more and remember the taste of wind
The bed thought it would like to land in a half-dead thicket in the darkest and dampest part of the wood
First gone would be the wool blanket
Gnawed on by chipmunks and squirreled away by squirrels and frozen and wrung out in the winter
Finally caught on the fleece of a wild ram and taken back to the flock to be pounded into knotted coat
At home at last in the living wool
Next the mattress 
Cracked open by thorns and the leaping of time
Burrowed in by animals who couldn't feel the difference between polyester blend and synthetic fibers 
It would mold slowly, the mattress thought
Beautifully almost, a bloomy rind of greens and yellows and oranges and browns
It wouldn't be lived on, but lived in
Infected with life awake
And it would melt away into mushrooms
Falling asleep
Finally the bedframe
The patience of the bedframe would be unparalleled
It would watch as the pillows and wool blanket and mattress all got their happy endings
For the bedframe was much harder, much older than the rest
It would sit and grow creaky and splintered 
Sinking softly, being rocked into the mud
Seedlings would sprout from cracks in the headboard and create a jungle for dreams
Moss would blanket slats and wear them away slowly
Rotting them from the inside out until the footfalls of a chickadee were too heavy to hold
The bedframe thought it would quite like turning back into forest
Its rigid spine would bend in and collapse
The legs would fold in under each other until the bed could finally lay its belly on the ground
It would turn into branches, then twigs, then mulch, then compost
Then finally carpet the floor for new trees
So in the house the bed lived a safe, healthy, terrible life and cried silently nearly every day
Until one day it heard a rusted red pickup truck pulling into the driveway
And smiled