The Tether's End

I admit defeat
 The mind is stretched
 Contorted and bereaved
 The conscience slips like sand
 Through my fingers, it reeks
 Pained, broken, sordid
 Tombstone graven in dirt
 Might I try to step
 Break my final bone
 Drained and thrown
 Into a realm of dark
 Blind obedience that breaks me down and rips apart
 My world turned upside down
 By the notion of an empty purpose
 Striding through
 My skin is torn away
 Bleeding out, see the raw hide of integrity
 The tether's end, I see it within reach of me
 Psyche, my leprosy
 Lethargy bequeathed me
 Fractured, a noble heart
 Finding purpose a futile measure
 Forever burdened, draped, encased by chain
 Now succumbed, the final stage of torment
 Is this really what it means, the gift of life made to abrade?
 To quell, to crush my inner fire
 At the tether's end
 Striding through
 My skin is torn away
 Bleeding out, see the raw hide of integrity
 The tether's end, I see it within reach of me
 Psyche, my leprosy