[Public Diary] - The Broken Man

"Have you ever seen a broken man...?"



Listen to the pitiful sobs, unsure what to say. I sit and stare at his shoes.
Looking up to see a man, broken... bowed over in his seat.
There is a soft 'tap,tap' as tears splatter onto his jeans, making dark spots as they soak into the tattered denim.



My eyes search for his, but his mind is elsewhere.
Empty.
He is a shell.
Staring into his hollow sockets, we share agony.

His face is gaunt, like death.

Tears flow freely from the corners of his eyes.
He doesn't care to wipe them away.
He doesn't care.

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"It's painful to look at you.."
"Then look away."
"...I can't."

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His face stretches into a anguished grimace
His shoulders heave as he takes a labored breath, rasping in his lungs.
One that seems to be his last.
Everything about this man is painful.


"I've never seen anything so tragically beautiful as this."


His hands are limp, one at his side, the other hanging on to a half-empty beer bottle.
He doesn't even blink as I take the neglected bottle from him.

A scarecrow of a man is slumped into the chair across from me.
Desperate eyes finally look back into mine.

Something is broken within him.