And he rotted inside as he could not bear,
The needles boring into his soul,
The pricks of a mind desolate.
He tried and tried, to get away,
But the ghosts haunted him all day,
And when the voices finally stopped,
His walls broken, himself uncorked.
He was bare to the world,
Open to pain, and all hurt,
And the reapers came and slashed across,
The darkening core this man had got.
And the fatal miscarriage inside him,
His sheared black soul, wearing thin,
Was pulled apart and torn away,
To leave a hollow shell astray.
His hopes and dreams all crushed and strewn,
On the field along with wounded soul hewn,
His withering figure shrunk to his bones,
Eyes losing their spark, enervated.
Nowhere to go, he knew what this was,
His final failure, his disgrace sparked,
And in his final wheezing breaths,
A horrid smile lit up his face.
For he, who had been king of kings,
Come where his enemies vanquished had been,
The last defeat on that battlefield,
Was the defeat of his conquering soul.
