Introduction

Stranger we become through the blurred lens of violence.

Visions drained of color and sound.

Sometimes, I don't recognize the monster looking back at me,
and in the mirrors of my own sanity I try and gracefully look away as often as I can.

An outsider in my own skin,
a deteriorating sense of hope and all the music I have ever heard
erased from my memory forever.

Lost. I find myself wandering the halls of regret
not knowing what door to open,
or what staircase to fall down.

Hush. Eerie silence in the dawn of a new world,
it ends abruptly and I can hear the sound of gunpowder exploding
from shells and glass shattering all around me.

Sinew on fire, muscles bleeding out of time,
and there's an unfamiliar woman sitting next to me
in a car that I don't remember falling into.

A melody is blaring through my insides, shattering me awake.

Wailing and shaking, we are driving on the curb of my own mistakes and I fear,
this may be my last night on earth.