James Hetfield states in an interview about the song:

That song was a big step for us. It was pretty much our first ballad, so we knew it would freak people out… Recording that song, I learned how frustrating acoustic guitar can be. You could hear every squeak, so I had to be careful. I wrote the song at a friend’s house in New Jersey. I was pretty depressed at the time because our gear had just been stolen, and we had been thrown out of our manager’s house for breaking shit and drinking his liquor cabinet dry. It’s a suicide song, and we got a lot of flak for it, as if kids were killing themselves because of the song. But we also got hundreds of letters from kids telling us how they related to the song and that it made them feel better."

This verse specifically tells about the feeling James has had during the time he had gotten his equipment stolen. He cannot think of a reason to even try; life and bad luck has broken him to a point of no return.

He doesn’t have much time to think about the good, the bad, and the ugly about this entire situation. The weeping boy is nearly done committing suicide by hanging.

A troubling image: in order to get out his flaws, you’d have to literally cut him up to pick them out!

He can’t forget about this girl, Her Voice Resides in his head. He almost feels as if he is choking, or getting near death, trying to get her out. At first, this seems figuratively, but as more and more of the song progresses; it seems he’s going for his last resort, suicide!