Despair

Despair

It is an all-encompassing demon.

Despair

Has many forms.

Fear

Anxiety

Sadness

Grief

Depression

Addiction

Desperation

Loneliness

Despair

Is a gaping maw 

With serrated teeth and a loose-hinged jaw.

A sucking, black abyss.

It drags and pulls and sucks

At you.

Famished, it hopes to dig its jagged teeth into your flesh.

What reality exists beyond, trapped behind the black hole?

I dread it is a fate of nothing.

Empty, shameful.

A cold void of light.

Heavy, illusionary, and absolute.

Beyond the black hole, you sink down into a crevice from which few ever return.

Desperation eats away at them, feasting, indulging.

The climb back up and out becomes impossible

Weakened, the terrifying vulnerability needed to climb out keeps you down

You cower and whimper within the beast.

I thrash against that despair with every ounce of strength I possess

It takes constant concentration,

Endless struggle,

Ceaseless vulnerability.

The exhaustion that trails me from keeping the relentless beast at bay is bone-deep.

I am but a shadow, an image of my former self

Soul-weary and drained.

It requires such a force of courage and a stripping of most other emotions 

That I might be hollow

Raw and numb at the same time.

But, I cannot relent.

I will not surrender to the sucking and pulling beast.

I am stronger than it.

My stubbornness to resist is a monster of its own kind.

Primal

Resourceful

Savage

I endure

Time and again.

Despair will never conquer.

Despair will never rule.

The pit will not have me.

I am made of something wild and vicious

And it roars to life when stoked.

Ignites.

Maybe it is within us all–

I mastered it 

Before

And the lessons flowed back to me

A natural geyser when I needed the will to withstand

I endure

I bend

I ache

But I do not despair.