tortured?
you’re damned right my soul is tortured
twisted and wracked beyond even my darkest imaginings
fraught with pain and blood and death (though it is the vomit, the piss, and the shit that gets to me the most
and worse yet, the stench of bacteria feeding on still-live flesh
I have nightmares about resistant Staph aureus and Pseudomonas more than any of my other fears combined)

but I try my best to hold my shit together
because ain’t no one else gonna do it for me
and in the end I chose this path
with both eyes open
knowing full well what I was getting myself into
and what I was leaving behind

and so my madness may manifest itself in stolen moments
spurts and gurgles
a sick desperation in my laugh
and this violently deranged spew that writhes out of my mind
and onto the paper
or into the endless medium of the vast ether
the only one who will listen
to the ravings of a lunatic

still I awaken in the morning to face the day
with the will to do good like a raging fire in my heart
driving my unwilling flesh
and there is no reward
and there is no return
only knowing that I am who I am
that I decided this fate
and that I accomplished what I had set out to do
though it will never be enough

not enough to fill the emptiness
the vast void that used to be my soul
evaporating like moonshine
spilled carelessly upon the filthy concrete sidewalk

and I might ask “was it worth it?”
knowing the answer is “what else could I have done?”
and “what else could I have been?”
far greater men than I have failed to escape their destinies
and who am I to ask that this cup be taken from my hand?

and “do I regret?”
but what can I regret
except fantasies that were destined to never come true
and the sleepless nights of wondering if I was good enough
smart enough
strong enough
and letting that uncertainty eat through my heart like acid
the lesser of two evils
in a world that may very well be hell
and I have far less blood on my hands than other denizens
of this diabolical plane

I do not seek your pity
nor your understanding
nor even that you listen
I ask only for your abeyance of judgement
for the story has not yet run its course
and at its end you can tally your verdict
and condemn me if you must