Sentimental,
As I look back.
The love my parents showed me,
The love I showed my nieces.
And here I am with
A chance to be a role model as an uncle,
A chance to make my parents proud,
A chance for their approval.

Decimated,
As I look forward.  
The things I want to do,
The people I want to love.
And here I am with
A chance to change,
What the past eighteen years meant.
A chance to reinvent myself,
A chance to be myself.

And so here I find myself,
Just another book on the shelf.
Should I stay in the same category,
So my parents will be laudatory?
Or do I think of my memento mori,
And write my own story.

Guilty,
As I think of what I could do,
To my parents,
My nieces,
To the ones that I once loved.
So here I am,
Decimated yet sentimental,
As I sit here looking,
At the scars on my arm,
And that thing I hold in my hand.
A chance for their approval,
Or a chance for myself,
Or a chance to end it all,
A chance to pull the trigger.