Torment and Choices

The greatest man I've almost known,
his heart was troubled, tempest blown.
A father, true, a man beset,
by life's struggle...we almost met.

I knew him, yes, but not quite well,
his life, alas, was spent in hell.
Addictions steal both heart and life,
his health, contentment, child and wife.

A brilliant mind, an artist's heart,
poor choices made, life torn apart.
What might have been I never saw,
addiction was his fatal flaw.