You and I, we're not the same You can wake and walk, your eyes are sane Day to day you see the beauty in life Day to day you walk a step closer to the edge but stride back the other way There's a drill in my head, gnawing down to the core Tearing into my mind like every bomb and every bullet I'm barely hanging on to the edge Would you reach out for me? You live in bliss to the way our lives are preserved The ignorance in your heart is not your fault I beg and I plead, bloody at the hands as the edge cuts deeper and deeper You and I are not the same (we never will be) At what price we pay to Shepard those who stride among the dark? Some days feel so dark and deep within the shadows Through this valley, I protect you You've never seen my face but I know you all I bleed and I cry and I scream as I fight We are not the fucking same How dare you claim to know my every move How could you fucking dare to open your mouth and speak on a world you've never known Swallow those words with the bitter taste of the truth as you lose yourself I'll be here, hanging on at the edge of sanity At what price we pay to Shepard those who stride among the dark? Some days I feel so dark, dependent on the shadows within me Through this valley, I scream out for someone You'll never see my face but I'll know all in the end I bleed and I scream and I fight every memory brought to life at night We are not the same Swallow your fucking words, sheep You don't know the evil that lurks in the shadows at your feet Disarm your only defense and you'll know exactly the pain in my heart Disdain within your mind will lead you to ruin No amount of faith or reason could pull me back No amount of medication could ever help Send me back to the place where I belong Send me back to the hell in which I thrive This is the price we pay to Shepard those at the edge of the dark I'll never know the light again, gripping tight the dark within my heart I'll wash my hands a million times but they'll never be clean of the valley's nightmares I've bled and screamed and fought every memory I've choked back I'll never be the same

I can't seem to find the right words to start this thing off. Maybe I'll just leave that sentence as it is. Let's begin. I'm trying to reconstruct a feeling of fulfillment in my mind lately. I feel stagnated in my position at work. I find it difficult to roll out of bed in the late morning simply because I barely slept through the night, as is my current situation. It's 7 am and I'll have to be up at 1pm at the latest. At least four hours between now and then will be spent staring at a dark ceiling, desperately trying to wrestle the covers back from my wife who sleeps soundly next to me. I've got that going for me, which is nice. However, there are still times I feel alone. Like I'm trapped in a black room and no one around to hear my calling out names. Is it fair? Is it even reasonable? I keep having reoccurring factors and scenarios in my dreams. In most circumstances, it involves factors from my past. A firearm. An enemy unknown. A desperate situation. The other night, I had a dream where I was armed with nothing more than my pistol. I had 13 shots, twelve in the mag and one chambered. I ended up getting shot twice, both in the lower left part of my chest. The scary thing about dreams is that they feel real. They, by all perceptions of the human mind ARE real. That is, until you wake up. I woke up, clutching my chest and in a cold sweat. I tell you this, oh nameless and faceless viewer of my pitiful tumblr post... The sound a bullet barely missing my face is something I will never forget. The thump in my chest when indirect fire from an enemy mortar team is a feeling I will never forget. The absolute terror and fear on the child's bandaged face that I cannot fucking erase from my mind no matter how much I drink or fuck or shoot or ignore. I am my own damaged goods. I so easily appear happy go lucky on the outside, but on the inside I simply want to fade away. I want the pain to stop. There's so many things that I want. Maybe it's completely irrational to put it that way. Makes me sound greedy. Like I have all these nice things in my life but I want more and more, never satisfied. No. The things I want are not materialistic. It is simply conjecture, begging for release from the darkness swirling inside my mind. The pain in my heart. The guilt I feel. My failures. My inactions. The lives I could have saved. The ones I didn't or wouldn't. The lives taken. Each time I put my finger to the trigger, I take a moment to remember why I keep picking up the tools of days past. Because, contradicting to how I feel, it helps. It helps me to disconnect the past from the present and future. I can't sit through a fucking fireworks show without having an emotional breakdown, freaking out and trying to find a fucking hard structure to take cover in. But, I can shoot a gun. God damn can I do that. I can do it a lot. I can do it with friends. I feel alive and well. Every time that hammer falls and the firing pin hits the primer, I feel the sweet escape from this torment for just a few moments. Somewhere out there, my father is smiling, saying "my man" like he always would. And I don't feel so guilty for not being a better son. In the end, I think it would be a moot point anyways. Speaking of moot points, I always find myself giving more than anything. Riddle me that. This broken shell, this hollow man, lifting those around him. How can a man with no core have the strength to do anything? How can a man with a tainted heart give his love for his brother? To sacrifice and mend with hands tainted from destruction and greed? That, I cannot rationalize on my own. I enlist the name of a song. "Glass Heart". An apt name, I would think. The line I always think back on reads "even if it burns me to the bone, I'll hold the sun in the sky with my two bare hands". I would lay down my life. I would sacrifice, so that your world may stay illuminated. So that your path remains clear and precise. For you, I continue down my ways of vigilance and silent watchfulness. I sit here and sigh at this monstrosity I've left with the letters I could barely form into words in the beginning. I'm not proofreading this, nor am I changing anything once it is posted. I always tell myself "it's not a cry for help. It's just tumblr. It's an outlet to get creative and write something from the heart". Yeah, well... I guess it is a fucking cry for help. Hopefully this reaches out and finds someone who feels the same way.

I wet my palate on the sweet taste of ascension Deep within my grasp is the struggle I had overcome Blood to ashes and bone to dust I leave behind the corpses of my demons The ship that had left port now sinks to the darkness beneath, leaving this world for the light it seeks There is but a shadow behind me now, chasing the light forever I climb the tower to the top, this mountain of mine I ascend beyond the chains that held me down, bound to my sickened heart no longer Out there is my future, my victory for which I climb Oh, I climb and I struggle, gripping tight every grain of dirt Every stone broken inside these hands that will take me to new realities Your vicious scavenging tears at my skin no more, vulture The wolf conquers the wild Blood seeps from my broken skin, "everything will be ok" echoes in my mind The trail of pain leads bottom to top, a broken body of shattered bone and ripped muscle "You cannot conquer me" I have risen, and with it I have found my victory My armor forged of your lies My armor forged of your avarice Your anger Your pain You gave me the strength from the chains you bound to my ankles Broken as they can be, I climb, dragging heavy metal links to the top You cannot conquer me I have become victory You will never conquer me I have become reality This wolf has conquered the wilderness Tell yourself everything will be ok As I sink my fangs into your throat

If I could use the blood on these hands to repair your broken heart, I'd repair every shattered thorn I'd pulled apart The broken glass in my chest pumps rust to a mind of caustic treason The chains of my failures tether me to the past I'd tried to escape and bind me to a future I cannot change If only this one thing, I would return your wings to their solid state so that you could deny this fate The vessel before you carries nothing but burdens and sorrow Deep beneath the surface is an undertow that drags my Pyrrhic victories to death A desolate city of shattered concrete and overcast by gray Therein lies my rites of failure beneath the guise of personal sacrifice Contempt for a truth I cannot erase and an epilogue I cannot write With trembling hands, my vision falls apart beneath the story you see before you A fleeting pulse that carries the subtle cry for help I will drag you down I will be the end of you A clock within ticks to the beat of the war drums Marching to the end of the line where the good lay to die and the rifles stacked against graves of the brave If for only a moment I could control these hands, I'd build a way to climb out of this hole I've dug and reach for help before it's too late The only things these hands can do is pull a trigger and tear apart the structures I've worked so hard to find I will never seek your help I cannot, I will not Not as long as the blood in my mouth reminds me of the sweet taste of vengeance and the stench of war From the darkest hole of my heart, I beg of you to fly away Release yourself from me and find your way back to the light