Late at night when it's too quiet, I listen to the voices. Nagging, digging, poisonous. Riotous and disquieting images are frightening and they lead me to bad choices. They fester and linger leaving residue and grime. I am a victim of a dirty mind like Lady Macbeth, haunted by the foreshadowing of death. All the sins of the past burning a hole in my soul, tearing a part from my heart. I try to leave it to the side and carry on, but damage done, nowhere to run when the demons are already inside. Nowhere to hide when the chemicals you create can seal your fate. Medicate and become a drone? No, my soul is my own, even if perfectly flawed and beautifully broken. Each word, each picture created a token to be left in my wake when my life is at stake. Seeking forgiveness for crimes never committed, doomed to hell and never acquitted. An unrequited love burning, still yearning. The sentence being twenty years, the cause of this leading to all my fears that I will not see the end. No chance to amend or undo. No hope to connect and renew. With no moral compass, I'm just spinning as the chances of winning are undone. Battles may be lost but the war is never won. I relinquished hope to keep sanity. My narcissism and vanity are a sham, to keep the emotional tide behind a dam. Reinvention of self and purpose fading, doubt creeping and pervading. This time the question is Me: To be or not to be.