Hard Pressed

I'm hard on things.

My car.
Cracked windshield; I burn through brakes.
When I cough,
it comes from deep and hurts.
My shoulders wrack.
My ears.
I need something on loud.
And all the time.
So loud I don't even notice my hearing fade.
Toothbrushes.
The brush clenched in my fist
as I scrub and scrub
the well-water fluoride I was raised on away.
I am always buying
a new toothbrush,
one that doesn't have
splayed, fringed bristles.

I get mad and my jaw sets and juts.
Hard and German.
Shoes.
Scuffed and worn through,
plastic pokes through the heel and still,
I walk every town block in them.
My eyes.
I will read and read and read
even when the light is gone and
the words overlap each other.
I'm hard on my brother.
He is a wonderful, brave man and why
do I need to remind myself of this?
Still, he's the first one
I look to when I can no longer
do it on my own. He's never
hard on me.

It seems I am always leaving
debris in my wake.
Maybe that's why you give me
such
wide berth.