Esther Racah Writer & Literary Blogger

Tag: lyrical prose

  • Ensnared In My Own Obsessions

    Ensnared In My Own Obsessions

    Ensnared in my own obsessions, tricked by my own illusions, I wandered, lost in the abyss of my fantasies. Nightmares were lulling me to sleep on a winter night, while soft whispers were revealing terrible truths to me.

    Time was slow like my heartbeat. I couldn’t cope with my anguish. It was a massive pain that devoured my heart constantly and slowly. Slow was the time. Slow was the consistency of all my pangs inflicted on me.

    Far away, I couldn’t perceive any clear horizon because respite was cast away from me. I could have cried; I could have screamed; I could have died from the cruel distress; no mortal soul would have ever noticed it in the realm of sugary masquerades and coffee goblets.

    Overwhelmed by the sense of oblivion and nothingness, I begged my fate to make me forget my bitter and sad memories, in an attempt to save myself from self-destruction. Teardrops of crystal ran across my face until they fell into darkness in the absolute silence of the eternal night.

    And I finally sipped the very last drop from my poison goblet. I could feel my heart fracture in all its power, and my body shake with bliss and delight. I embodied my decay fiercely, and flames engulfed me impetuously.

    Shadows captured me viciously with their menacing claws, ripping my heart to pieces of frantic flesh. Shivers of ecstasy and panic tore through my mind, and my body was no longer under my control.

    The void called me as if I were a creature of its realm. That immortal doom seized me in a dungeon where no starlight could penetrate. I hesitated and sighed in the midst of the nocturnal haze, which hid the deception of my dreams.

    Ensnared by my own obsessions, fooled by my own delusions, I strolled, although I was confused in the chasm of my daydreams. I couldn’t feel the loneliness anymore because of my imagination. I couldn’t discern anymore what was real and what was not.

    I strove to feel calm and so much wished to be a star glowing in the sky among clouds and moons. I aimed to be infinity and emptiness. My heart became a labyrinth of frenzy and ambiguities. I was longing to be taken away from my hallucinations.

    And I screamed to the firmament a multitude of times, though I knew that no creature was willing to hear my laments. Wicked visions cast a spell over me, mesmerising me, and I surrendered to their shadiness, mistaking it for deliverance.
    Elisabetta Esther

  • The Shadow Of Death

    The Shadow Of Death

    The shadow of death was behind me, perpetually, like a faithful lover, tearing from my heart every hope of being loved and cherished as a unique treasure. It was a distorted mirror that reflected my anguish and my fears. It filled my cell with scarlet red incense, which constantly suffocated me, stifling me and preventing me from seeing my own image.

    I lived this suffocating and abominable pseudo‑reality in constant terror, no longer understanding whether it was real or a surreal fantasy, the product of my hallucinations. I perceived those distressing candles that burned me alive every time I approached their presence.

    The cold rock walls were so thick that, however much I strove to cry out and scream my pain, no one could ever hear it—no mortal and no creature from the subterranean world of the afterlife to which, apparently, I now belonged.

    Amid dust and drops of my blood, I was relegated like a lifeless creature, feeding on the faint light of the blood‑red candles, and that suffocating incense that penetrated every part of my body. Even the stars refused to cast light into that narrow cell, where my pierced heart had been nailed to a dilapidated wall as if it were a souvenir on display.

    I no longer had the capacity to harbour a desire or to hope for an existence wrapped in enchanted flowers and love spells. Everything I had dreamed of I had lost in the abyss of obliteration, and all that I had vainly pursued in my miserable existence had vanished, having only materialised into a bleak and mortifying prison for my soul.

    And thus I vanished into that menacing and omnipresent cloud that loomed over me. Even the decrepit walls, made of cold and indifferent rock, had no tears to shed for my bitter demise. I myself had become the shadow of death, no longer a mortal being but a creature of that world I had so long shunned, which, despite everything, had devoured me entirely and inescapably.
    Elisabetta Esther

  • Sparkles Of Sadness

    Sparkles Of Sadness

    Sparkles of sadness manifested in the gloomy forest of my dreams. Lulled by a torpor of defeat and annihilation, I attempted to traverse a place unknown to me, with astonishment and wonder, yet, at the same time, with a heart steeped in sadness.

    Although the silver moon illuminated this unknown and dark forest, the further I proceeded, the more it seemed that I was losing myself in oblivion and in the abyss of my fears and uncertainties, for it was there that I was rooted; my heart was torn by a sense of suspension into the void.

    Indeed, I was overwhelmed by my nightmares, which slowly revealed themselves in the shapes of ghosts and wraiths, as I proceeded along my uncertain path without a clear destination. My gentle pains, which scourged my heart and disturbed my mind, rendered me powerless in the face of such apparitions.

    Even unwillingly, I had fallen victim to a vicious and infamous game of which I was not the author. And I could not even, powerless as I was, awaken from that deadly torpor, which was destroying me every night, as the wind consumes even the most unyielding rock.

    However much I struggled to oppose the oblivion that sought to annihilate me and erase my name, I could find no hold, no aid that might pull me out of that condition of misery and decay. My heart was lacerated and bled all my hopes like a raging cascade.

    Suffering and pain were the only faithful companions that followed me everywhere. In this realm of sepulchral silence and sighs of souls that could find no peace, I remained still, awaiting my demise.

    Bloodless, exhausted, I could no longer proceed and I fell beneath the weight of my own anguish, as if it were made of gigantic, menacing clouds bearing down upon me. And thus I vanished, leaving nothing but a trail of sparkles of sadness and blood, as if I had never been born, as if no one had ever known that I had existed.
    Elisabetta Esther

  • 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

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