Hopelessness

What weight of burden does it take for the soul to give up?

What state of sorrow laden in the heart makes it so feeble?

What fear, what apprehension does make the mind tremble?

What makes one shun oneself from the world and escape into a blur?

Hide away from all memories, from existence, from all concern –

inflicted by the self, and not by others, in the long run –

to derive happiness in detachment and isolation,

become a living corpse wandering the ruins of the earth…

All the pillars of strength come quaking, crashing down,

no shred of confidence left, no attachment, all glory gone –

naught but an ache, a craving for true novel freedom,

making one cling to dear life, thinking one day this pain will be done!

What does one do, when everything finally comes to a head, the masts split –

when the sails come undone, and the only way out is to quit, to sink?

Can one survive when the only boon from the Box, Hope, has abandoned ship;

or must one make peace with her and drown, ceasing to blink?

What hope for the blind who has ceased to look to hope –

for one who can no more picture the harbour, let alone the safe shore?

What life for one, for whom death has become the only way to live,

and the only way to live in the waking reality, is to sleep?

© Isha Garg