My own self destruction

Sometimes the wars that we fight are fought in our hearts, minds, and souls with nobody to helps us at all. Depression, PTSD, Addiction, are just a few examples of the battles we must face on our own yet even though we must fight on our own the innocent bystanders that are around will sometimes perish or become wounded causing collateral damage...

My own self-destruction

As I walk down these cold and
lonely streets all alone in a city
that never sleeps, watching
people pass me by begging
for help yet I am invisible so
it seems then I watch as
a little splash hits the ground right in front of me,
so I look up at the hazy brown
and dirty skies just to see if
it is the rain or teardrops from
my eyes and that is when I
realize that It has been so very
long since who I was has been
gone so long now that I do
not know who I
am anymore as I have even
somehow somewhere forgotten who it was that
I used to be with no idea if I had
any kind of hopes or dreams or
if there is maybe somebody out there
who I care for while my head
hurts like it is being pounded
with a hammer, as I try so damn
hard to remember anybody at
all anywhere who is maybe
even thinking about me, then I
feel as my teardrops become
so real in a world that is surreal
falling so hard now down my face 

that I can no longer see, so I stop
right there where I stand on the
corner of the dead and the
damned and I wipe away all tears
from my eyes just in time to watch
as the darkness starts to consume
me as a sadness starts to fill me, 

for I believe that regret
must have somehow
finally found me, hunting
me down no matter where or
how far that I run with sorrow having 

its way with me even after I say 

No, STOP, as I fight
back just trying to escape yet they 

keep on attacking me day after
day week after week year after year until I am
left laying in pool of my own
guilt naked laid bare, beaten, bloodied, 

and bruised with a stench of ill refute 

hanging in the air like thick black
smoke as I search for anyway
using anything I can to try and forget my sorid
past using a kind of induced self-medication 

in the mediation of every addiction known 

to man, causing me to forget but only 

for a little while who I am or
was and used to be, I can only hope that maybe one
of these days I will remember where I 

am from so that I could
go back home to whatever maybe
left in the ashes and ruins from a war that did not
want yet had to
fight against others and myself
that ended with a war that has been
won with the battles lost including what has become
the beginning of my own self destruction.

Poet Richard M Knittle Jr.
A #Poets Journey