This life is no longer my own, but a foreign enemy hell bent on my destruction.
This faceless shapeless adversary is unrelenting,
seemingly fueled by the fires of hell itself.
What do I do?

As life wields weapons of unwarranted, unending troubles.
I am accosted, as if, by black tar.
I am burned, scarred, slowly dragged down by this torturous affliction.


Do I take this abuse and stand defenseless?


Succumb to the onslaught of attacks? Or do I fight?

As life drowns me in an ocean of woes.
I gasp for air only taking in water.
I am suffocated by troubles, slowly sinking.
Do I fight to regain possession of my life? Thrash about the water,
until thrashing becomes treading? Or do I go limp?
I could give up entirely.

I could go to that ever present promise of eternal sleep.

I could end these visions that haunt me, creeping behind my eye lids,


the nightmares plague me constantly.

I could end the pangs of pain that come from this beating heart, with


the ultimate sleep that every living thing is subject to.
Sleep that brings about a peace so complete
it can only be wished for, dreamt of on this earth.
After quitting, death, sleep, come the dreams.
But what kind of dreams?

Dreams of glory and light?


Pure bliss, beyond contentment,
reaching levels of joy no man could comprehend.
Is that what some call heaven?

Dreams of failure and darkness?


An inescapable turmoil,


trapped with no hope of release.


Is that what some call hell?
Dreams of nothing?


A void of emptiness, a lack of consciousness,


numb to everything, even being numb.


A nameless state.

And there it is.


The fear of the unknown.


The unsolvable, unanswerable, unknowable mystery


of death’s dream.



It paralyzes us, makes us immobile in the face of action



We are made useless, incapable of anything.
Why else

would we bear the brunt of life’s best efforts to tear us down?


Stand by as injustice occurs daily.
Powerful men spew hatred from their lips.
Love is cast aside, devalued by the ones who matter.
The system is riddled with flaws and corruptions.
Disrespect is tolerated in all aspects.
Contempt is doled out without reason or basis or logic.
All of it could stop.


This suffering could end.


I could leave on my own terms, with my own power.


Just me, myself, and a bare knife.
But fear of the unrevealed.


The concept of a permanent irreversible fate


leaves us paralyzed in fear,


Rendered immobile for all other options except
to follow the path more traveled.

Wrestle with the devil we know

rather than fly to the devil we don’t.
I am a coward

Made sick in the face of thought.

This resolution seemingly so strong within me,


falls too easily, too often, under the weight of,



“if, could, might, maybe, possibly.”

My downfall is brought by no one but myself.


My mind, this conscious thinking, is


enervated by the paradoxes of life.

Action debilitates to inaction.


I am weak.