A Cycling Season

I remember dying, just like the first time.

As bones break down, I glimpse its face peeking through sinew.

Every time witnesses watch me drown

in manufactured misery it places in me that I cannot mind-over-matter away.

This pain overtakes and disassembles me.

I retreat to an ever-shrinking room.

Alone I listen to the melancholic words

outside the false asylum I lie

so self-assured I will live on,

but I deteriorate.

I fear I will always futilely implore.

Wake me when this is over.

I don’t want to sleep forever

coexisting with the demons I keep beneath my killing floor.