the perfect punishment for me

suspended in darknes, time has standed still for me, for an eternity. tormented by memories past and nightmares of tomorrow, i have nothing to look forward to, no real want to live on.


i look to my reflection, asking do you hate me? and quickly answer i hate myself much more than you do. then retreat to my dark corner where i once again try to sleep. but i have been cursed to always endure the voices of all those i have destroyed. and i destroyed them because i have been cursed to listen to them. a never ending circle of cause and effect, effect causing effect, caused by the effect of the cause. i can't even remember how it started.


did i kill first, or was i cursed first. i look to my reflection for an answer, but she just sits there, a pathetic site. filthy, covered in muck, blood of the innocent and wearing the smile that only the truely insane can accomplish. she is my only companion. her and i, i and she. face to face, forced into oblivion.


i am cursed because of you. i say to her, but she just smiles, and with the feel of her smile on my face i anwser me, yes, it is all my fault. i cannot lie to myself. and myself, she cannot lie to me. again, the circle of logic. circles and circles, that is always what i am stuck in. i wish i could desimate my logical mind, shatter it into a hundred, million pieces and throw it from me, so that finally i can escape.


but as long as i am bound by my sanity, i am bound to myself. i want nothing more to leave her, to flee from her and never set eyes on her again. but she is always looking at me. with this thought, my eyes cannot help themselves but to look back at the poorly lit, brass framed mirror. a single candle, burning forever, so i must see only myself... for eternity. my punishment. my just rewards.


i thought myself better than all others, and now i have only me as my company. poetic she says. ironic i say. couldn't have thought of a better punishment myself. one of us say, but just as soon as it passes our lips, my fury grows again, throwing me into another fit. i try in vain to rip the mirror from the cave wall, where it sits gently resting on a small mantel of some design. i throw it to the ground, shattering it. then with my bare feet, i grind it into sand casing my feet to cry crimson. sending wave after wave after wave of pain up my legs, until overcome, i fall back from the mess.


i rest for only a moment seeing behind my eyelids, body after mutilated body. the legions of dead, piled up like dirt. like grass. the motionless sea of once living things that now are so far from what they were. fear gripping me, my eyes fling open to find the plain, brass framed mirror back in its original place, unbroken. and i, in all my madness, see me once again, sad sight for sick eyes.


why won't you die!? i scream at her. she only sits there, staring at me tears running down her face. because tomorrow must always come. and i know she is right. and i hate myself for it.


for this is my punishment. forever to face myself, until eternity's final sunset when i will return to oblivion.