Despair

Disconsolate beating,
inmost defeating―
this sorrow,
this dread,
this despair.

One thousand steps,
feckless sustaining.
Just one step back,
ruin regaining.
Lost in unending despair.

Esteem sweetly falling,
hope is left sprawling.
O iniquitous
soft sorrowful
rain.

With gravest affliction
upon me so grievous.
So fraught as it leavens,
it simmers―
this demon,
O demon
of terror,
of pain.

I find no escape,
nor find I refrain,
from fetid― unending despair.

No ground left beneath me,
nor sky up above.
Nothing to reach for,
no past life to love.
Lost in unending despair,
I am lost in unending despair.