Esther Racah Writer & Literary Blogger

Tag: existential struggle

  • With A Shadowed Soul

    With A Shadowed Soul

    With a shadowed soul and a heart in pieces,
    I proceeded without direction and without refuge
    In the vast expanse of works of eternal beauty and magnificence,
    In my solitude, misunderstood and isolated,
    shunned for my identity,
    always having to hide like a creature invisible to mortals,
    yet present and alive,
    With a heart burning like an unquenchable flame.

    Deafening noises haunted me,
    And I sought to hide as far away as possible
    In a clearing of unquenchable and precious peace.
    I dodged mortals, I dodged their wicked and illusory souls;
    beings I deemed unworthy even of their glance upon me.

    The thorns of my sorrows pressed into my heart,
    making it bleed.
    It had become like a kind of gigantic sculpture
    that radiated pain and the weight of life,
    But also ardour and passion.

    The envy and jealousy of petty, tainted beings
    left traces of filth and decay
    upon my veil of protection and innocence.
    The sacredness and devotion of my heart
    had been contaminated and defiled
    by their greed and rotting wickedness.

    Their twisted faces bore a grin of satisfaction
    and, at the same time, of bitter corruption,
    to the point that their faces were disfigured
    by sores and deformities,
    as if they had contracted leprosy
    or some terrifying disease.

    My search for untainted love and the sublime had become impossible,
    for the shadows of these monsters,
    whose cruelties towards me were unparalleled and horrific,
    obstructed the view and the landscape
    to the point that I could see no more,
    And the fog filled my eyes,
    And I saw only darkness—
    The vastness of oblivion tried to swallow me.

    By now, the veils of illusion had fallen to the ground,
    And I could see reality as it truly was,
    For those bitter disappointments I was experiencing
    In those very moments of contrition
    had helped me to see those malevolent and dreadful souls
    for what they truly were.

    With a shadowed soul, I remained abashed,
    standing at the edge where hope and despair are mashed.
    Elisabetta

  • Infinite Stairs Of Waiting

    Infinite Stairs Of Waiting

    Infinite stairs of waiting
    The more I wait, the more I feel trapped in the dungeon of anguish.
    The more I climbed the stairs, the more I tried to ascend,
    the more it seemed I was descending downward with no result.
    All of this made me frustrated
    because I could not reach my goal.

    In my stillness I found myself,
    But at the same time, I lost a part of me.
    It was as if everything I had learned
    I had lost and forgotten,
    and everything I did not know
    I had unconsciously acquired.

    Confused and bewildered in a place of nowhere
    I strived to believe in my dreams but all I could do was fall from the stairs

    It was a game of illusion and reality.
    I had ceased to discern what seemed deception from what was truth.
    Both had blended together.
    It was as if there were no longer any meaning,
    and no longer any need to possess the domain of wisdom and knowledge.
    Everything had shattered into the abyss of ignorance and madness.

    And I proceeded on a thin thread between creation and destruction.
    My perplexities and hopes echoed as if they resounded through enigmatic structures, without meaning and expectations.

    Spirits that I could not discern, that I could not distinguish, whispered to me encouragements to pursue. But every time I fell and plunged into another flight of stairs, they laughed, almost as if to make fun of me — and to mock my inexperience and incompetence.

    In solitude I found myself lost, and there I languished like a creature from other worlds, indulging in my languor and melancholy; I was certain that I was towards myself and my image no longer had reflections in any mirror. The staircase was truly infinite like a steep ascent without end; there was neither a beginning nor an end, everything was an infinite perpetuity of distress and anguish.

    Infinite stairs of waiting were my dwelling for eternity, and there I had to… to… I didn’t know anymore.
    Elisabetta

  • The Castle Of Ghosts

    The Castle Of Ghosts

    The castle of ghosts was the fortress of my fears and anguish.
    The castle of ghosts also held my deepest terrors within its walls.
    It rose majestic and formidable on winter nights of solitude and storm,
    yet stood equally clear on silent, warm summer evenings.
    There was no season in which I could not glimpse it on the horizon—
    Each time I surrendered to my dreams
    and let my subconscious strike my heart,
    unlocking a secret chest filled with arcane mysteries
    and precious jewels.

    The voices I heard were those of malevolent spectres,
    intent on robbing me of my joy and my imagination.
    They sought to annihilate and utterly destroy
    all my dreams and visions—deemed by them mere madness—
    when in truth they were the very essence of my being,
    The essence of my heart, secretly nourishing my fantasies,
    those fantasies brimming with hope and desire,
    With stars and dawns yet to come.

    I could no longer entrust my secrets to any human soul,
    After all the harm had poured upon me like icy rain
    On a tempestuous night,
    while countless daggers and arrows pierced my heart and body—
    as if I were born and destined
    to a life woven with anguish, grief, powerlessness, and wretchedness.

    My heart was entangled in brambles,
    whose sharp thorns made it bleed perpetually,
    draining all the vital, creative energy I harboured within—
    leaving me a bloodless creature,
    devoid of impulses to guide me forward
    Along my dark and uncertain path,
    where every step was like a fragile, slender thread,
    ready to snap under its own frailty.

    Survived invisible storms,
    silent battles no one ever saw,
    I carried within me an armour of ash,
    hardened by time
    between fleeting shadows and light.

    The castle of ghosts was, in truth, the castle of my surviving selves—
    versions forged through countless traumas, abuses,
    and dreadful events that cast down my soul, my heart, and my body,
    to the point where I died many times over,
    only to be reborn as a new person each time.

    And now I had grown accustomed to losing all that I possessed
    only to gain something else—
    Something that would grant me another identity,
    another name,
    and another heart.
    Elisabetta

  • The Death Behind Dreams

    The Death Behind Dreams

    The Death Behind Dreams
    by Esther Elizabeth Racah

    The death behind dreams was a consequence of illusion and betrayal. The world of dreams had always been the only refuge for her—a realm where the rules of reality no longer applied, where the impossible became tangible, and where the weight of life could be forgotten. But now, even her dreams had turned against her, becoming a prison of their own making. She no longer awoke with a sense of wonder but with a deep, gnawing dread. The dreams were darker now, twisted into nightmares that she could not escape. Each time she closed her eyes, she knew what awaited her on the other side—a place where every hope went to die.

    She found herself standing in a vast, empty field, the sky above her a sickly shade of gloominess. The air was filled with misery and decay, and the ground beneath her feet was soft and yielding, as though it might be ready to swallow her whole at any moment. In the distance, she could see shadowy shapes moving, but no matter how far she walked, they remained just out of reach. They whispered to her words she could not understand, their utterances carrying a sense of foreboding that chilled her to the bone.

    She tried to wake herself up, to break free from the grip of dreams, but her body would not respond. It was as though she had been trapped in that surreal realm, forced to endure the nightmare with no expectancy of escape. The death behind dreams was behind the line between reality and the dream world, which had blurred, and she no longer knew which was which. The days had become a blur of fear and distress, and the nights were worse. Sleep had once been a solace, but now it was an exhausting curse.

    With each passing night, her dreams became more flamboyant, and her sense of dread became more assertive. She wandered through frightening labyrinths that twisted and turned in unimaginable ways, leading her deeper into the darkness. The walls seemed to close in around her, and the meadow seemed to alter into suffocating thorns. She could hear her own heartbeat, a steady thrum of panic that echoed in her ears. She was suffocating, drowning in an ocean of shadows with no way out.

    And always, there was a presence lurking behind the dreams, watching her, waiting. It was the death behind dreams, a force that stripped away all joy and hope and left nothing but despair in its eternal slumber.

© Esther Racah 2026. All rights reserved.