Murderer: A Poetic Monologue

I'm a criminal.

Bet you never would've guessed it, looking at my innocent childlike face. Blank expression with no trace of the frustration, the heartbreak, the vengeance that is my motive.

I'm good at hiding.
I've been committing my crimes for years, actually. And nobody knows.

How could they? I lurk in the shadows, camouflaged by the murkiness that is the uncertainty and the self-loathing that ensnares even the most wary of victims. Nobody slips through these briars unscathed. The best come out with cuts that won't heal. The worst...they never leave.

I'm trapped here myself. A victimized perpetrator.

It wasn't long ago that I was free. Like the innocents. Like you are right now. Like you will no longer be when you have passed through. Right now, you are young in all ways. Happy-go-lucky, so lucky indeed. You don't know the pain. Yet.

You will.

You see these thorns that have torn the flesh from my hands? They are disappointment. The first cut is deep and bleeds profusely. Each cut after is deeper and more painful, until you become so numb that you can no long feel the needle-like monsters that devour your skin.
The sharp rocks along the ground are hardship. They slice your feet, even through the shoes. Not that you'll keep those shoes long. The quicksands of unwise friends will rip them from your feet, for you cannot dodge these pools of deception for long.
Those dark mountains in the distance? Those are trials. You'll have to climb them. You'll hate every step. I did.
If you escape, you will be old. Your eyes will betray the pain and anger, the weariness. Gaze into mine. Do you see it? It is there. My motive for destruction.
And these vines? The ones wound tight about my neck, slowly choking the life out of me? Sadness. Their leaves are heartbreak. The slowest, slyest killer out there. Except for me, that is. They (we) pose great danger to you.

I am a murderer.

I dislike you. I detest me. I hate the sunshine beyond the walls of this prison. I despise this prison cell. I hate ensnarement. I loathe freedom.

Nothing personal. It's only what I've become.

Yes, you heard that right. I wasn't always this way. I stumbled into this forest, same as you. A few eternities ago, when my candle went out in the dark. Funny that the darkness of this prison was lighter than the darkness of my path. And now I'm haunted by the lights. You will be too. It's coming.
I was enticed into this despairing labyrinth by the voices that whispered my name. I thought they would help me. Only, I was supposed to help them. But I couldn't. I didn't. It's too late. My first, and most impersonal victims.

I fill their role now. I called you in here. The difference between them and me is this: I already know you can't help me. You're powerless against this darkness that holds me captive. You're my next victim. Doomed to rot in this hell. It's nothing personal.

I am doomed as well.

Don't worry. I'm not too much of a danger to you. So long as you stay away. Far far away. My other victims didn't. Be the wise one, and flee from me.

There is one victim which you would never discover. Because I keep her locked away, far behind the vines that entangle. Every day she cries out to me, to the world. I am her world. She is mine. We cry to each other, as I silence her with death.

Don't fret. She does not die. Yet.

She is the only one against whom I hold a personal grudge. As she screams against the fiery torture of this place, I maintain my composure. She fights the forces that assail her. I watch apathetically. These powers that she fears? They are me. I am her worst enemy. She is my only friend. I look on as she dies a living death.

Guilt by silence, the voices murmur. I am a murderer in more ways than one. It is I that tortures her. It is also I that stands by watching, pitying, and doing nothing. It is I who has planted this jungle of self-hatred, and I have filled it with these beasts that stalk. I am guilty. I am the forest.

I am a murderer, and I am committing my final crime. Stand by and watch, if you wish.

Observe my destruction of me.