Emptiness rang me again:
The slow pitfalls of exhaustion
Slashed the hard roughness of my lungs
As I lay there escaping, trying
To think, trying to speak.

I was wordless, unable to move
I thought how ashamed I was, how cold
The world could be to see the
Trembling words from my mouth turn
Into blood....I was actually
Coughing up blood....
Blood that turned a blackey red
When the air dried and my
Throat burned like
The claws of a thistle.

My gut felt as though it had wrapped itself
Around my heart, letting
The muscles tighten with *****
As they pushed and pushed
Harder and harder
Gripping onto the walls of my stomach;
Churning and tossing as at sea.

Steam from my sweat rose from my flesh
And dripped onto me from the roof
As I became massacred by
Feeling, as though I had to mutilate myself,
When the acidic horrors of my
Nightmares began burning off.


©Jack Aylward
(Published in the Scotia Review magazine, no.24 edition, Summer 2001).