Abyss

Somber is the thinking of the lonely man drinking to dull the pain of his heart breaking. His screaming thoughts revolve violently as they tumble deeper into the yawning abyss of despair, and his imploring hands reach forlornly for the compassion of friends, but their hurried eyes just glaze over at his approach.

The scale of his misery lies far beyond their comprehension because only he can know the whirlwind feels, down there in the sheer depths of the abyss that has sucked his anguish down to die in the lightless land of no return. Clouds of gloom tower black above the looming cliffs of defeat, and boulders of remorse plummet around him to be swallowed whole in the bottomless quicksand of lost dreams.

The serpents of surrender are angrily awakened from their sated sleep for their purpose of consuming all ambition, but giving back nothing. From the gates of Hell glide the sightless vultures of doom that soundlessly remove all traces of the wretched souls who pass this way, yet the lonely man stumbles on, still fighting the approach of eternal night.

The quagmire of the vanquished beckons him to leap over the threshold of oblivion, where pain finally ceases to be, but he sees a wavering halo of hope shimmering through the darkness, and can feel its glow reaching into the cold void of the abyss.

He hesitates, then struggles onward toward tomorrow, alone.

Nigel P Kent, 1999.