I'm dying inside,
This time it's real.
Is this what pain is?
What is it like to feel?

I thought I'd saved myself,
I thought I'd done right.
But my soul is being torn,
Regrets cloud my sight.

I'm turning to an empty shell,
You thought me cold before.
This, the chill of despair,
Leaves me gasping on the floor.

The guilt destroys me,
It eats me alive.
The torture of my conscience,
Like the acid now inside.

I nearly broke today,
The closest I've ever come.
The weakness made me angry,
My stoicism undone.

My limbs drug heavy,
I couldn't think straight.
I'm reliving my 4 year,
Eternal debate.

But all is already lost,
I cast my dice years ago.
The part of me that held hope,
Never let my brain know.

The dreams that kept me going,
Have faded unto black.
The only thing I dream of now,
Is trying to go back.

My bed has transformed,
It is now a time machine.
It lets me travel back to when,
So much less was seen.

I fall asleep in the past,
But I wake to filthy present.
My beliefs start to **** me,
Faith I've come to resent.

These dreams are my punishment,
And none worse could there be.
They take me back to my failure,
And they crush me to my knees.

Imagine your own pain,
Yet twas not your fault.
Now imagine mine,
I am my own result.

It was not another,
Who cause this, my terrors.
It was only I,
Through my own errors.

Through my frailty and fear,
My idiocy and weakness.
My very own decisions,
Are what have brought this.

I used to wonder,
And ponder on love.
I deemed it a choice, no,
A curse from above.

But now I can see,
I was wrong yet again.
At least for me,
It is the definition of pain.

Death looks upon me,
And down with a grin.
And suddenly I fear it,
For my soul has grown thin.

For once in my life,
I wish not to die.
I have unfinished business,
From which I can't shy.

This hatred will follow me,
I wrote my own curse.
I chose through my weakness,
To ruin my only verse.

The pallid cloud surrounds me,
And reminds me of my shame.
It hurts just to say it,
To whisper my name.

The self pity angers me,
And yet, it is revealing.
Because for the first time,
I can't control my feelings.

Bittersweet this now is,
You might think a victory won.
Yet, such irony I am now,
Chained by my own freedom.

My priorities have come to light,
And they are not what I believed.
For years and years it seems,
I have been self deceived.

This pain is beyond bearable,
For it was not fortune's call.
It was I, and only I,
Who brought about this fall.

Part of me desires death,
The rest plods shakily on.
Either way, I can't control,
My heart dies with every dawn.

It seems to me so fitting,
That I've done it to myself.
I, who felt so in control,
Have destroyed my own health.

I am a cannon, firing blind,
Not tied nor anchored down.
Blasting holes and blowing smoke,
At everything around.

So I'm wondering now,
Is this what it is to feel?
It burns like a nightmare,
Yet this one feels so real.

I'm living my hell, my punishment,
How fitting it should be.
That life, the only thing that I loved,
Should so soon be taken from me.

I sealed my fate with a choice,
A failure to secure my own:
At the end my life, my night,
I will always be, alone.

Staring down the barrel,
Black is all I see,
I know my target to be there,
Aiming back and me.

I know his eyes are red,
The sh*t he's been through.
I know he's looking awful,
But hell, I am too.

Now my arms are trembling,
The gun shaking in my hands.
Sweat pours down my brow,
From exhausted glands.

The pounding in my head,
Harder than my heart.
I can hear blood rushing,
Senses set apart.

Am I the hunter here?
Or am I the prey?
Sometimes I lose direction,
In these games I play.

I see a glimmer in the dark,
Grip tightens on the stock.
I see my foe, just before me,
My mind numbed with shock.

Standing in a circle of light,
Looking tired and warn.
Stands a man clinging to his gun,
His countenance ragged and torn.

I take a step forward,
In time, so does he.
Only inches away,
Moving along with me.

I raise my gun higher,
He too does the same.
My fear now compels me,
A twitch ends the game.

He shatters into pieces,
Glass shards at my feet.
A thousand tiny fragments,
Reflecting back at me.

It seems I was both,
The hunter and the hunted.
I killed the man in the mirror,
Maybe that is what I wanted.