Hellbent

Hellbent 4/4/2012

Of all the thoughts
That swirl in our heads
Memories, images, and feelings
Half of them hurt
And half we ignore.

There are people we knew
And people we admired
Friends and acquaintances
Scattered through the years.

When we speak
We remember
All the faces and the times
Memories and feelings
Intertwine and coalesce.

You can know men
By their friends
And our friends
Mold our lives

Their opinions and passions
Become ours
And ours become theirs
Each a part of the same
Either for good
Or for bad.

I had a lot of friends
And some of them I keep
But some also are lost
Gone forever
Either by decisions
Or fate.

I have heard it all before
And I have lived it through
Standing at a great height
And falling down forever.

I have seen hell
And I stared it in the face
Awake through an endless nightmare
Of loss,
Horror, and, agony.

Draining me
And all my blood
All my work
And all my dreams.

And I strained to see backwards
As I gasped for breath
Watching it all swirl
And disappear
Down the drain.

Leaving me unable to speak
Or make any sound at all
Open mouthed in horror
At what I saw
And what I knew.

To lose
And keep on losing
Is like an endless
Dark night of the soul.

Impossible to stop
And repair the damage
As it bleeds and spreads
Everywhere you look.

I have seen it
And I have felt it
Bearing a weight so heavy
That it crushed me
Down to nothing.

I tried to escape
And I tried to forget
Pulling up a black blanket
To sleep my life away.

I wanted to wake up
In a new world
Where everything made sense
And everything was right.

But I had fallen
Down a rabbit hole
Where the world
Was overcome by madness
And spun out of control.

Where right was wrong
And wrong was right
Where the good were guilty
And evil excused.

Where men sucked blood
From the necks of others
Draining all their life
In great gulps of joy.

I wept and I prayed
Until I could feel the sweat
Stinging my pores
As my bloody tears
Fell on the pages.

One thing led to another
And I kept falling forever
Rolling down hill
Losing my love
And all I ever hoped for.

I will never be the same
But, I am not the only one
Alone again at my keyboard
Filling in
All the dead spaces.

If I could only go back
Everything would be different
But no man
That has tried that
Has ever returned.

I drank, and popped pills
And tried to sleep my life away
Retreating into the darkness
That I knew so well.

The days blurred together
But I could never escape
The loss ever before me
And dangling in the air.

No amount of alcohol
And no mixture of drugs
Could ever blot out
All that I knew.
And all I had seen.

It gets better
And it gets worse
And God only knows
Where it will stop.

The world goes on
And teeters on the edge
Just an inch away from disaster
And a thought away from death.

Others have fallen
And the reaper is grinning
Looking across the bodies
Rotting in the street.

I have survived
By the thinnest of margins
All for a purpose
I do not know.

I write
And fumble in the dark
Lost in my thoughts
As time passes by.

Still searching for a reason
And still holding on to faith
Scratching at the ledge with my fingernails
Because that is all
I have left.

I have not forgotten
And I know I never will
Because you can’t hold a ghost
But its hard to say goodbye.

Life is cruel
And the world is heartless
Pulling you down
And crushing your spirit.

But never give up
And never give in
Not until the end
And not until you know.

Laugh at the devil
And crash through his gates
Straight through to victory
No matter how long it takes.

Because facing fear
And loathing
Is not the worst
Nothing but a test
Taken, completed and done.

A gift to the good
To purify their spirit
Nothing but a chance to grow
Ever greater
And larger.