A letter

The darkness has defined my life.
Time and again I have fallen.
The demons that dwell there greet me with open arms.
Sometimes they greet me as one of their own,
A fellow soldier in the army of the damned.
Sometimes they tear my flesh and crush my bones.
They leave my raw bleeding soul to burn in the fires.
Fires fed by my own rage and anger.
Either way I eventually pull myself free.
But I hear them laughing as I go,
For they are convinced I shall return.

As a child, my home was loneliness and pain.
My father was a storm that raged in and out of my life.
A storm whose fury could be felt with fists.
But eventually, as all storms do, this one moved on to another place.
I was not sorry.

My mother heard the voices that whispered in the mind.
Slowly she came to believe more in that world then in ours.
I could not stay any longer.
Leaving became my escape.
I was not sorry

I began to haunt the night,
The streets became my home,
The darkness welcomed me.
For many long years, I did what I had to do.
What I needed to do to survive.
I have been evil,
I have done things that I will never tell another living soul,
I have done things that shamed me,
I have hurt people,
I have destroyed lives,
I cared for no one but me.
I was not sorry.

I got a woman pregnant,
A woman I did not love.
She gave birth to a son,
We buried him three days later.
I walked away.
I was angry but....
I was not sorry.

A different woman came into my life,
With a child by another.
She tried to pull me from the darkness.
She succeed for a while.
Then one amazing day she gave me a daughter.
I knew my life would never be the same.
I needed this child and she needed me.
I was not sorry.

But the woman had changed,
She no longer cared what path I walked.
As the fighting started,
As the rage became greater,
I began to lose track of who the darkness was calling.
I knew that this was not the way things were meant to be.
So I left.
I took nothing with me.
I left every thing I had.
I knew she would need it for the babies.
However, she used it against me,
Destroying what she could of my future.
But for that, I was not sorry.

I turned to the only people I knew.
They were not nice people.
They cared nothing for the fact that I needed to get on my feet for my daughter.
They lead me back to the darkness and pain,
And I could not resist.
The drinking,
The drugs,
The sex,
Anything to keep me from getting what I wanted,
My Daughter.

The woman told me I could no longer see my child unless I could stand on my own.
I was so far gone it took 2 years for me to get there, but I did.
I had a job, a car, and an apartment,
I also had found a woman who loved me.
I was not sorry

I asked if I could see my daughter,
And the serpent smiled the false smile.
I was lied to,
I was jerked around,
And I was betrayed.
I was still young and so desperate,
I let her talk me into making the worst mistake of my life.
I signed a piece of paper she stuck in front of me.

She took my child and ran.
Hid her away from me for years,
And there was nothing I could do about it.

The woman who loved me tried to consoled me,
But the darkness had seen an opening.
The anger and rage swirled around,
I pushed everyone away.
I started to slip back to the places and people I swore to her I would never go.
Finally, in desperation we fled this temperate state.
And in the heat of the south, I burned all the anger and rage away.
I realized this woman was the only one who ever stood by me,
Even when I could not.
I told her,
It's done, the darkness is gone, lets go home.
I was not sorry.

The years passed and my life settled into a sort of grey.
My soul had been too damaged,
Too much had been ripped away to get much beyond that.
But I was not sorry

Then one day the phone rang.
Maybe god knew I could finally resist the darkness or maybe,
He just finally noticed me.
For whatever reason, one of His own messengers was on the line,
Telling me that He had a gift for me if I could but reach out.

So I went to that bastion of commerce,
And I stood on trembling knees,
My hands shaking as I watched her walk in.
An angel, the most perfect vision of heaven.
I could not speak at first.
I hugged her and told her she was beautiful.
Then she looked at me.
She had grown up without me.
She had no idea who I was,
Not really.
I was not there for her all those times she needed someone.

And that last statement,
That one little line,
For that,
I am Sorry......