The sweet burn of alcohol,
still on my lips.
The rustic smell of cigarette,
through the warm summer air.
The white page before me,
with meaningless scribbles.

For I am but one soul,
meant to burn.
Meant, because I have committed crimes,
crimes I do not yet know of.
And yet, I'll know of them.
Yes, I'm sure I will when I die.

I am cursed, you see.
Cursed with a vengeance on this world.
A world that has so wronged me,
that my heart will never forgive.
Cursed with endless work,
for I shall never quit.

How often, I sit and wonder,
If this world is hell,
and each of us has committed some terrible crime.
But that cannot be so,
for I know of those who live
fat and luxuriously without a care.

Maybe this is my own hell.
Maybe it is all in my mind.
This entire world, inside my mind.
My own little world, created
from my own thoughts
to punish my eternally.

But no...one must avoid such thoughts.
Thoughts of the world revolving around oneself.
Maybe, yes, maybe
I am here, along with all the others,
only to pass the time.
(There is a word here that can't be made out because it's been smudged. It might be "Religion?")

Why are people so certain,
Certain that there is more than this life.
But what if there isn't?
What if this is all we have?
And this one, fleeting, life,
is all that we have to make our mark?

How could it be such,
that man, a glorious creature indeed,
has nothing special waiting for it?
How could it be that such a kind, beautiful race,
is nothing but a bunch of meaningless particles?
How?

Oh, but I'll tell you how.
For this is unmistakably a cruel world.
A cruel, unforgiving universe.
So then, why bother?
With anything at all?
What's the point?

So then, why do I write?
I write because I hope.
Hope that one day these words will reach.
Will reach a fellow lost soul.
Hope keeps each of us going,
going, and going.

Hope must not be underestimated,
for it is the very essence,
the very beauty of all mankind.
Maybe, too, it is the curse
of all mankind.
And yet we still hope.

Hope for a better tomorrow,
a better world,
a better fate.
Hope binds, and connects each of us to one another.
We are all the same, really.
Each of us live on hope.