Aftermath (Another poem my friend who died and I coauthored)

Why has this happened to me?
This change,
this metamorphosis into a monster.

Once I was happy,
Once I frolicked
through the meadows and felt the
wind on my face as I drove the vast expanse of
the highway.

Once I was happy,
naive,
and in bliss,
but now I am something
different,
something evil.

Something which battles with himself for
control of such a fragmented mind.

What is in me is nothing but misery,
but hate,
but sorrow,
and regret.

What is left of something empty,
What hollow shell of happiness remains
is thin,
weak,
and on the verge of collapse.

I am broken,
longing for my past,
for days of old when things were
simple,
when I saw nothing but good,
and the world was a vast expanse from
which I could only grow.

Knowledge is destruction.
Bliss is paradise,
and through my yearning for understanding
I brought nothing but hell unto myself.

This now is me,
a shell,
a hollow being,
a cynic who sees the world
as nothing but murderous.

This poem my friend and I coauthored three months ago. Both he and I were in very dark spirits because another of my friends was murdered, shot dead in a drive by. We both felt responsible because we weren't there to help him, so we wrote this together. Tell me what you think. This is also going to be a poem in the book of poems I will have published for my friend.