This is the story  of a soul, 
Lost in the tussle of life.
Desired to give in to a ghoul, 
His presence, he felt, was such a strife.

He had lost all his fights,
He had wept through the darkest nights,
He had come out a lost cause,
With a faux smile, his happiness on pause.

I witnessed his heart - so broken, so shattered,
Psychologically destroyed, bruised and battered.
Saw those tears of regret, remorse and rage.
That held fear of the future, arrested in a cage.

He stared back at me with disdain,
His eyes holding raw, undeniable pain.
He hated me for losing hope,  
For imitating him, resembling a mope.

The haunting past, it made us go numb 
To our mental scars, we wished we could succumb.
Antagonized our former selves for being so naive. 
We resolved for our future selves to now be brave.

Now staring through the glass, that's where I see,
That soul - my reflection, now looks nothing like me.
A mere mask now differentiates us two,
For I have learnt to hide, while he to subdue.  

The remorse, the guilt, now fuels my agony,
Of each breath I inhale, I feel the epiphany.
So I stand tall, So I don a mask,
Pretending against the society isn't a herculean task.