The bleak, black land
is stormridden with tears
that do not irrigate the earth
but fall helplessly
from bruise-heavy skies.
To the mist-clogged senses
trees appear like monsters
with ravening branches.
Friends have the faces of enemies.
And reason is too exhausted
to deny these illusions
the belief that nourishes
their tormenting forms.
The bright galloping of life
is mired. And even if hope
does not sink forever
its flanks are stained by
the suction of despair.
Here the ghosts walk,
their magnified voices
turned harsh and cruel
by the echoing loneliness
of this deep chasm
between unscalable cliffs.
The wanderer knows
the valley will end
in a bright hot tide.
Yet that’s poor consolation
to feet still waterlogged,
plodding on through the dark
of grey mud
and tears.
Still, the feet plod.
This responds to the Tuesday Title prompt at Poefusion. I’ve had some very bad episodes of PMT, of the depressed rather than irritable variety. One day I would be fine, the next day it would be as if the sky had fallen on my head. And I wanted to capture something of how it feels to have your moods overcome by negativity that is too pervasive to fight, even when you know exactly what is happening and why you are reacting in that way.
