When you rage at others, the words tear through me. When you yell at others, the words cut into me. When you shout at me, the words shred me to pieces. When you attack anyone with words, it is I who suffers. With every angry word you say I am injured again.

Yet it is not how you are attacking others that causes me the most pain. It is how you are treating yourself.

With every step you take towards living only for vengeance, I am trampled. Every time you slap aside your adherence to common decency, I am stricken. Every time you throw away compassion, I am tossed aside. Every time you give in to the worst of your darkest tendencies, I am blinded.

Since you set out on your quest for vengeance, I have been bruised, broken, cut, and tossed aside by your words and actions. I am gravely injured in soul and mind. I am bleeding copiously from my heart. I cry out desperately for your decency, your honor, your compassion, and your humanity. I plead with you to stop the terrible plunge you have taken into hate. You do not hear me.

There was a time when you approached me as a friend, your presence a breath of fresh air to me. Then your presence became a punch in the gut and a momentary loss of breath, a painful injury, but relatively easy to recover from. In time your presence sucked the oxygen out of the room, leaving only an airless void. I was barely able to breathe and you did not care. I gasped desperately for air and you did not notice.

You were, at one time, filled with friendship and warmth towards all. Then you became a cold breeze, people shivered as you passed. You became an iceberg and people shuddered as you drew near, the effect passing slowly and lingering in the room.

You are cutting away at the kind and decent person you were, and it is me who is bleeding. You are slicing into the warm and compassionate man that I loved and I am the one in pieces. You are dying inside.

But it is me you are killing.

If all that you were—warm compassionate, friendly—dies, it is I who will be lifeless.

If you succeed at killing all that you were in your quest for vengeance, it will be me you have murdered.

If you drown yourself in hate, it is I who will be submerged.

If you keep going on this path until there is nothing of your true self left, it is I who will vanish.

I am becoming transparent.

I am hanging by a thread over a precipice. Dangling above a cold merciless ocean, I desperately cling to the slender, fragile thread that is left of you.

I can only hope you do not snap.