Attrition

The cocktail is a battlefield with victory measured in hard-fought disfigurement, compromised torture, and milligrams of lost hope.  My enemies, camp followers, and fallen pill bottles all look the same from here.  I don't want out; that would be too easy and pointlessly cruel.  I want through.  I will burn fields of sanity and sow my skin with Roman salt in pursuit of victory.  When the fog of war slips through momentary peace, I can only write about love I barely understand.  My hands are bloody, and my stomach is sore in ways only those familiar with the battlefield strewn with shattered weapons and moments I will never know again may understand.  The best of all outcomes is a stalemate; a draw between pain so the order of battle falls at the same rate.  I mourn for our Legions, but they cannot mourn for me.  I am the evil genius of my nightmares, and I will have what I need, no matter how horribly I come across it.