The skin is old, drawn tight over sinew and bone, colored in part by liver spots and veins. Knuckles still scarred by a life of violence, white lines over ridges of petrified cartilage.
My hands tremble with fear and anxiety, an eternal hole inside, originating in panic and of my own making.
I want... something. A thing unknown to me, a something to fill that screaming void and rock me into comfort. Something to burn away that hole of emptiness, of unaccomplishment and futile achievements.
My life is ending, not by choice or by my own hand, but rather by a thousand trickling wounds, a lifetime of hurts and a world ill equipped to offer softness to the bruised spirit.
I will carry the hurt, the burden of my own life into what I can only hope is sleep, eternal rest, and no more of... this.