The Not So Sure Things

As twilight fades to darkness,

And the moon begins to glow,

I start to ponder the sure things

That I'm not so sure of anymore.

My questions send me wandering

The catacombs of my cluttered mind.

I again obsess over the wastefulness,

Of the gifts I've long held confined.

The crickets chirping in the bushes,

And the frogs singing in the trees,

Don't have the effect I was hoping,

My heart feels blackened with disease.

The firelight feeds this frenzy.

Paranoia creeps in the back door.

The fiends troll in the shadows...

I know exactly what they have in store.

As my inner demons rise again,

Tearing holes throughout my core,

My mental panic increases the manic

And I collapse on the forest floor.

They fill me with false promises,

Prophesize a future of blood and gore.

Ears deluged with the horrific screams,

Possible victims my heart can't ignore.

The agony forces my eyes open,

I'm stunned by the calm stars above.

If only through their emotional absence,

My tormented soul could be absolved.

My body contorts and spasms,

As the fiends power is restored,

The flood of my own wretchedness

Is almost more than I can endure.

They torture me with awful rhythms,

My nerve endings played as cords.

An agonizing internal orchestra

Practiced by unsympathetic hordes.

Again the darkness threatens to take me,

And steal the little that is still pure.

But the hounds of hell can bring no pain

My own mind hasn't brought before.

This realization is my reinforcement.

I recognize the horror from which I came.

I now see where I should be going,

And question if I am still to blame.

I don the face of the card man,

Removing the reads they so enjoy,

My mental monsters don't miss a beat,

Still seeking, and hoping to destroy.

I feel a power I've never known,

A pin prick of something more,

I am in control of my own destiny,

I don't answer to the demons anymore.

Their gleeful howls echo in my mind,

The wolves have captured their prey?

With instinct and razors they converge.

But this time, it is I, that they will obey.

From the broken bones and ashes,

The once fragile boy now purged.

Scars have become his armor,

A man ready to face his scourge.