Hard Pressed

That nameless regret
is pawing around
inside me again—

spreading apart the
spaces in my ribs,
peeling apart muscle
to make room
for itself,
leaving me an
autopsy mess.

My toes are cold
in the summer air—

an internal chill
abstraction of winter
that crops up
without reckoning—

today my self is
hard to swallow
& every time I try
something glitches
at the back
of my throat,

my left side of
inconvenience I can never
cough out completely.

There is no sad music
within reach
& I am too tightly corded
to retrieve some—

involving speech
particles in the
indecisive air temperature
I create

& the botched representations
of normal function
I cannot adapt today.

In my mind
I have no age—

no rings inside me
to show personal effects,

the large & small
striation years
mostly paved over
& smooth with forgetfulness.

I have found no
tree parts in my
simplistic explorations—

no basis for the
stiff bark I feel
tracing under the length
of my entire skin.

It is days like this—

the abject cold,
palpable misfires,
ton weighted movements—

that feel like night
has carried over again.

The night that binds
me up with harsh light
& disfiguring thoughts—

the complete perversion
circles twisting themselves
to spiral & eat
their own heads—

that I cannot escape.

The endless night
eclipsing reasoning
only I can calculate.