Based off the poem "Tattoo" by Ted Kooser

He looks at the tables, filled with tools rusted and broken. He can’t breathe with the black t-shirt on his back, sleeves rolled up to show the old tattoo, which has since faded, the color dulling to a blue-green of bruises from before. It aches, not just the tattoo but each of these weapons have caused him pain. There was that time from his young days when a wrench kept hitting him. Those days from when he was young where he would go out and hurt others. He was hurting, he kept hurting.

He guesses he could’ve healed, but those were days, and places, where if you showed your emotion, you got hurt. Badly. That didn’t stop him from crying out when wounds bloomed, sobbing when people hurt him, begging when they didn’t stop. Sighing, he puts the wrench down, letting go of the weight only to replace it with the keys to his car. He turns, and walks away, thinking of all those people, all those things, all those memories that hurt him.

He thinks of the days where he wondered if someone would save him. No one did. They just kept hurting, hurting, hurting. And he did the same. The guilt he carries of those families he destroyed will haunt him until his death bed, where Death themselves will approach him. They’ll examine his body, look through his memories, and look at him with pitiful, sympathetic eyes. Or maybe ones of hatred.

“What happened to you?” They’d ask as he wheezed for his last few breaths.

“I hurt,” Would be his answer, before fading into black.