Just to explain. This piece is a first for me. It explains the fall from grace one experiences from years of substance misuse. That's all I'll say. Please be brutally honest with feedback. I want to learn to write and appreciate all criticism. Much love.

My world is cracking apart, fragmenting, like a once radiant piece of quartz, once pure, and clear now splintering under an unseen pressure. How long can I endure before i am turned to dust? How long before this heaviness is lifted so I may live as I please?

The bastards of the world are upon me, and the sirens of self destruction sing to me night, and day with their seductive cries, and empty promises drifting on the cold winds. I know they are nothing more than enchanters, and ghosts. Unseen astral parasites waiting to feed on the anguish of a lost man in a sick world. I must find a way to fight back. How many times have I ran to their siren songs, and how many times have I been washed up, like a ransacked, broken, and empty vessel, on an empty beach? Unfit to sail upon the free and open seas.

I lay my head down to seach for answers, and i dream of deliverance as my body heals, violated by the wretchedness of poor decisions, broken once again. Yet another fruitless excursion into the forest of excess. There are no treasures in the wild woods that cover the islands on the other side of the sea of sorrow.

I have gathered all the ashen gravel I can bear, and what of it? The lot turned to smoke, mist, and murk. An anxious veil that I wear with shame. Through peril and mayhem i chased the amber dust, but no more can I lay my eyes upon it. Mixed with blood, and fire, consciously entwined with my soul only to find myself riven, and unwhole.

Slow motion suicide. Too scared to live, too scared to die. I manufacture pain, and like a fool I share it with those I love whether they consent or not. Like a saddened, maddened alchemist I turn the love I receive into pain, and distribute it amongst my kin once more. Aware of the damage but unable to stop. My quest for peace has wrought disaster upon me.

In my heart there is love, but as it leaves my body it is blighted by demons and turned to something rotten and terrible.

Corrupt is my soul and now I must plot, and scheme to overthrow the tyranny of my own corruption. Ridden with guilt at my inability to steer my vessel towards desinations where the denizens of such places are moral and just. I have allowed my selfishness to guide me, and experience an upswell of fear at the notion of responsibility. What a sad and embarrassing state of affairs I have created for myself.

To be a man of moral agency has been my desire for as long as I can recall, but my character has betrayed me. I must die and let the birth pains of a self, purged of corruption let me try once more to make things right. There is fear. There is trepidation. Above all else I smile, for a new me with lessons learnt and a power no man can take as I am reborn anew.