The world is laced in fire, rising higher;
all things good shall soon expire.
Everything is now most dire,
the grip on my throat grows even tighter.

The fight is gone, the war is lost.
Does anyone know at what cost?
Stabbed in the back and double-crossed;
fire's ash covered in frost.

Frozen tundra, all alone;
feels like I'm just at home.
I have no life to call my own,
secludity is all I've known.

Anger, rage, the urge to fight,
all of these exposed from fright.
Suddenly, I see the light,
I see the truth, ever so bright.

Never were my thoughts so clear;
I no longer have any fear,
I come I see what to hold dear,
and, suddenly, I shed a tear.

Alone in darkness, strays my mind;
I've always stayed with my own kind.
Slowly, then, I come to find,
my whole life was pre-designed.

Everyone I loved the most
had become only a ghost.
Parasite life, I am its host;
In its game, I am engrossed.

Misery and sadness filled,
I come to see how many it's killed.
Trapped in the cage I let it build,
how could my dream have been fulfilled?

Love and life, that was my dream;
for one moment to be serene.
Life's disease is all I've seen,
my dream could never have been.

But through it all, I've found a way;
a way to make it all okay.
If it is a lie, then death with no delay,
for life without love is death in its own way.

Commentary

Painfully simple rhyme scheme, aaaa in each stanza. No consistant meter, no consistant footing. Frankly, I wasn't very fluent in footing at the time that I wrote this. This poem is meant to feel very mellow, and to be read very slowly. In all honesty, I always ran the music from the exceptionally slow, tired-sounding version of Nine-inch Nails' "Erased." Only song of theirs I was ever very fond of. The poem itself is descriptive a rather consistent feeling in my life, though, a few of the lines reference specific events. The title is in quotations to symbolize sarcasm, as if saying, this so-called "life." The meaning behind this is explained in the final line of the poem.