I found some of my older poems just today. They were in a plastic tote, along with some diary entries, an old half-finished screenplay, and some story ideas and notes. The following is a poem I wrote in 1998 while struggling with active alcoholism and marijuana use. You can see how hopeless I felt back then.
I, the sinner,
Hopelessly doomed to express,
To opine,
To suggest,
To tell;
I, the deviant,
Hopelessly sentenced to dine
On the young carcasses
Of the oppressed;
I, the devil,
Hopelessly abandoned
To die alone;
I, the sinner,
With nothing to call home;
I, the sinner,
With nothing.
© 1998 Steven Barto