Sinking underneath the ocean floor
With a painful grief like chains of sorrow
Feeling disoriented and lost
Like the death had reached for my heart with its numbing breath
While I was letting the water and earth take advantage of my body
I felt dark shadows and gods from the underworld touch my soul
They imprinted their fire branding upon my hand of clay
The path was established for eternity
And I awakened as one of their kin, reborn in shadow.
Elisabetta
The abyss of nothingness swallowed all my fractured desires
The fear that gripped my heart and that sense of calm, of stability that took hold of my life made me a helpless and insignificant creature, invisible to mortals, yet at the same time the target of their cruelties.
How much I wished to be different, to be accepted, and to be treated with great respect for who I truly was. But in truth, my entire life was a series of piercing endurance of inhuman suffering, humiliations, cruelties against me, deceit, mockery, traps, attempts to undermine my being, violence, and all the most barbaric and terrifying acts against my soul and myself.
My life had not been a normal existence—one that no one could have understood. My experience was not a common one. I had lived through a time when my dream had encapsulated me in an ideal, evanescent, and ethereal reality. No one could see me, especially during that period of apparent death. Yes, because for ten long years I had not lived—I had fallen into a deep and fatal dream, isolated from everything and everyone. I had built my own kingdom of dreams and illusions, into which, day by day, I entrusted my very self.
All the hourglasses in my dwelling had come to a halt, and the flow of time had lost all meaning. The disconnection from the truth that surrounded me had become both a tendency and a habit—one that turned into law. Indeed, I had become like a crystal frozen in time, like a statue untouched by its passing. I carried within me that immaterial sense of my heart, trapped in a confining aura.
I no longer cared what society thought, nor what people might perceive of me. And so it remains. For my rarity and my strangeness are imperceptible to any human heart. I was accused of things that never were, of things my heart could not even fathom. Everything had vanished like soap bubbles. Nothing remained—only bitter memories or sorrowful ones that dragged me down into the depths of an untouchable abyss.
Delicate and fragile as I was, I had lost the ability to love, to admire, and to obey mortals. I no longer saw them as similar to me, but rather, I perceived other beings—creatures who had no voice in the human condition—as kindred, as dear to me. And so it was that the abyss of nothingness possessed me, and it will always possess a part of my soul. For I belong to the emptiness and to the darkness.
Elisabetta
The vault of forsaken keys was the place of shadows and mysteries, of wisdom and madness, and where the keys of all the world, beyond the earthly and the earthly, were kept. It is not known to what or to whom they belonged, yet they seemed to guard secrets that no one could know.
As dark and gloomy as this cavern of fantasy and greed might seem, of recession and generosity, it had a particular charm, a sobriety so composed that it impressed me for the order and at the same time the madness that hovered in those ancient and decrepit halls.
The scent of incense and ancient metal impregnated the air, which was coloured by semi-shadows, by metallic reflections that the shadows cast upon the walls.
The endless and long corridors spread out into an infinite labyrinth impossible to decipher. Without being able to find an exact direction. But one constant thing was the vision of a light like a perpetual faint glow at the end of these corridors. And the more I proceeded, the more I found no end. It was as if I had remained trapped in that underground and undefined place from which I was certain I could no longer escape. Because in fact there was no way out. And I was destined to become one of the countless and anonymous metal keys arranged on the walls.
My freedom had been devoured by that unnamed and unfindable place. My troubles and cries were worth nothing, I only lost my breath. It was as if gradually I was losing the faculty to perceive my breath. And it was as if I was transforming into something else.
I never knew if I was dreaming. I never knew if I was a common mortal, a being born on a planet. Or, instead, I was the fruit of my own imagination and I do not know what I was, what I had originated from. I too felt like one of those countless keys, in that vault of forsaken keys.
Elisabetta
My illusions concealed the bright stars and the moon. I was sure that I couldn’t rely totally on my perceptions and conceptions of life and dreams. I didn’t know anything, but the only thing I could do was cry in my loneliness on a long night when no stars and no moon were visible to my eyes. All my memories were hanging in my mind like paintings. They were like thunders during a night storm in the ocean whose foundation was made of nightmares and suspiciousness.
Beneath the shadows of hollow trees, I found my dwelling to rest free from the clouds of anxiety and distress. No glooms of sadness could prevent me from looking at the night sky. Maybe it was just a dream, but I couldn’t avoid staring at the dark and starless firmament. I dared to question my senses, but all that I could obtain was confusion and dizziness. In a realm where everything seemed absurd, odd, and meaningless, I strove to find a sense in my ephemeral existence.
I had ceased to comprehend what was truth and what was deception. The night with its frightful shadows and wraiths, became my loyal companion, so sweet and lovely. No one could ever separate us, not even for an instant. The magic wisdom of the gift of madness was so sublime and exquisite. Unique was the foolishness of my silent heart. Invisible and abandoned in the quest for my fate, I explored labyrinths and mangroves in the wilderness of my imagination.
My illusions deceived me repetitively, as I attempted to sugarcoat my lonely desolation, deprived as I was of every solace and comfort. I saw the dirty squalor being put on the sacred altar of devotion and veneration. Mortal souls preferred profanities and obscenities to sublimity, beauty and virtue. The world of mortals was shamefully collapsing in front of my eyes and I preferred to shut myself down in my boundless dungeon of illusions, nightmares, dreams and hallucinations. To never be back to that false and tainted world.
Elisabetta
So it was a night a lonely light where the sky was covered in clouds and all the shades of blue
surrounded by silent statues whose stares seemed looking at me but in reality, they just didn’t see me. My loneliness was my only dwelling to create another version of myself. I was crying tears of blood, shame and regret. I felt confused, and at the same time, I had the certitude that I would never belong to the world of mortals. I accepted the fact that I never understood and accepted the worldly rules and conventions as I was a creature of my own.
It was just night when I realised all the decadence of my existence like an ancient statue living off the ancient memories of its previous life without any hesitation and doubt. And so I approached the mirror of my soul where I couldn’t see any image reflected. It was like I was without the soul, and it was because my heart was too broken to be alive. Being always surrounded by beauty and decay I realised my demise. I strived to accept my ephemeral  dimension and abide by being invisible like a small stone in a huge ocean of confusion.
I knew that every delight and joy did not belong to me, but only sorrow and distress. All I could do was dream. Dreaming and lamenting my miserable life was my delight.  I felt like in a cage, an invisible cage that just made me imperceptible to the sight of everyone. I was just a shadow, a spirit of the night of the terminal darkness where only other ghosts and spirits could perceive my presence. So I was condemned ultimately to a place between dream and death. I was not sure that I was alive. I could not understand since I got lost in the labyrinth of my fate.
So it was a night, an eternal night. There was no more sunrise or sundown. The sun vanished in the emptiness, and the horizon was so dark that it seemed to be made as an abyss of gloominess. I wondered terminally without finding a refuge of hope and happiness. Tired as I was, and exhausted from my life, I had to face my condition as irreversible and doomed. So it was a night, my eternal night the end of my suffering, and the beginning of the perpetual void. Deprived of light and desire.
Elisabetta
The golden mirage appeared in front of me
I couldn’t perceive if I were dreaming or awake
But I could sense the magnificence of my vision
As I forgot all my anxieties and fears, I proceeded on my path
The deception of my fantasy could have betrayed me
Because it felt so tangible and discernible
I chased delusions and I couldn’t discern between reality and dream
I had lost all my purposes, wandering without any directions
My unintentional existence was a chimera
Just a delusional journey destined to end in the valley of desolation
In that barren stillness, I couldn’t find any awareness or hope
My delusional adventure conducted me into the abyss of despair
I had lost everything and the enchanting, tainted spell transformed into a ruin
Distorted reflections of myself shimmered in giant golden mirrors
Sparkling in all their lush illusion beneath the silent stare of the stars
Every dream that blossomed in my imagination became a stone flower
Everything I ever desired was reduced to crumbles of dust
I felt the awareness that I had fallen victim to my own betrayal
Every piece of my heart had been burned like an inextinguishable flame
Wicked ghouls watched me from afar, sending me missives imbued with scorn and disdain
While a defending silence resounded all over the surreal realm of gold and darkness
Where absurdities and oddities governed as capricious rulers
In this kingdom of gilded trees and silver moons, there were no directions or tickling clocks
Everything seemed inert but also topsy-turvy
My sleepless sanity surrendered to madness
Overwhelmed by the outrage of my own fractured mind
I wept behind a veil made of ephemeral lies
The stars conspired against me, singing enigmas and riddles I couldn’t solve
Making me feel dizzy and desperate
I was a powerless creature in the realm of the golden mirage
I had become a mirage myself.
Elisabetta
A doomed paradox was my trap
The more I escaped the tighter I was bound
Each step forward pulled me back
I tried to chase the wind but it eluded me
Each decision became a chain wound tighter around me
To escape meant to be trapped
For each door opened, another one was shut behind me
My liberty was slowly being killed by my fate
The harder I fought against my destiny the worse it approached it
To unlock the chains I had to stay chained
I strived to reach for freedom, but it closed in as poisonous ivy wrapped around me
I attempted to defy the tide, but each wave pushed me closer to the abyss
I struggled against the void, but each part of me was swallowed by the silence of the vault
The shadows crept closer to me with their sharp claws around me
Their gloomy chill tightened around me like a funerary veil
They led me deeper into a labyrinth of forsaken spirits
My heart thudded in a deadly cadence as if its hollow pulse belonged to the underworld
The cruel embrace of despair of the dead wraiths was pulling me underground
I lost my hopes in reaching for the stars that faded away like faraway candles in a storm
I had become a prisoner of the eternal night, chained by the very darkness I sought to escape
There was no beginning or end in this ill-fated paradox
This doomed paradox became my eternal dungeon
My refuge had become my prison never to be left
I lost my wisdom to merit my madness as a prize
Time left me and every hope of mine was reduced to dust
I was becoming decadent and dead like a withered flower left to dissolve
And all I could see was an endless nothingness surrounded by a deafening silence.
Elisabetta
The shadows of affliction hunted me in the night
They awakened me in the middle of my slumber
Like a fever that gripped my body with its sharp claws
It always left me crying on my bed with a bleeding heart
Submerged in my teardrops I kept my soul wide open
As if I could get more dazed than the night before
Echoes of my lost dreams resounded in my obscure chamber
They made me feel like a withered flower with no hopes
I was left, astray in the wasteland of silence
As I was a forgotten spirit, I wandered among the ruins of my soul
The abyss of void yelled my name to reclaim me as its beloved possession
Because nothing more could have saved me
If I could have erased all my distressing memories
I would have lived a bearable existence in peace and calm
Instead, I was doomed to eternal misery and the spasms of death
I couldn’t find any key to the door that was keeping me locked in my struggle
So many thoughts and fears were overcrowding my mind that I couldn’t tell
I felt overwhelmed and dizzy as I was wandering in an endless maze without guides
The shadows of affliction were cast over me like ominous ghosts
I stood immobile since panic had grasped my heart
The frosty breeze of the night froze my bones
And every mirror I encountered never reflected my authentic image
I didn’t remember my name anymore, and my purposes
Climbing ivy curled like serpents, entwining me in veins of sorrow and silence
From the instant I died, I was buried beneath layers of anguish as a captive of the underworld
Chained to cry and despair amid the indifference of stars
And the moonless night sky offered no comfort
I had chosen to hide in the darkness and never reveal myself to the light
With nothing left but a lifeless heart
I had become one of the shadows of affliction.
Elisabetta
The magnificent abyss of infinite darkness
Was my blissful place where I could embrace my inner chaos
Given that I loved to embrace my own darkness and I always will
While sorrow made me become a creature of the shadows
Indeed, my soul sought the shadows of the night
My heart was fed with nightmares and anguish
Despair was my greatest comfort and companion
Since I was an ethereal entity made of dust of decay
No mirror could reflect my image
So much infinite I was inside myself
So many fragments were part of my heart
I was an infinite multitude of beings in a world that never existed
Sublime wonders blossomed around me
Beneath the shining moon that accompanied the sun
Everything was glimmering in all its splendour
I was magic and so was the realm where I was living
The moon and the sun were my devoted cohorts
They guided me in my journey through darkness
I became a creature made of light and shadow
In the magnificent abyss of infinite bewilderment
The endless night embraced me softly
Because I was both darkness and sunshine
Shining glitters of beauty fell all over me
And I faded into the ominous void
As glowing, fleeting stars vanished in the eternal night
So did I disappear, only to reappear forevermore
And I drifted through phantasmagorical realms
Where every dream of mine became reality
I became a whisper in the storm and an inextinguishable flame in the twilight
The magnificent abyss was my dwelling
Where chaos and quietness coexisted together
In an endless dance of glare and dusk
I discovered both my demise and my endless obsessions
I became a foolish paradox and wild creature of the night
A magic witch and ethereal fairy flying everywhere with beautiful wings made of stardust.
Elisabetta
In the mirror of astral woe,
Reflections of the soul did show.
Not faces, but the shadows of thoughts,
Woven into a cosmic knot.
Each glance revealed a spectral tale,
Of existence where truths turned frail.
The mirror’s surface, a gateway to fears,
Where the self was lost in forgotten years.
Through its glass, the void stared,
Revealing the soul’s deepest despair.
Each reflection was a whisper of the infinite,
A gaze into the abyss, where darkness split.
The mirror reflected not what was seen,
But the essence of what might have been.
In its depths, the astral realm’s sorrow grew,
A mirror to the soul’s darkest view.
In the shadowy realms it held,
Unspoken dreams and fears rebelled.
Each fleeting vision, a ghostly parade,
Of regrets and desires that never faded.
Through the silken haze of the mirror’s sheen,
Spectres of what was, what might have been,
Danced in the void, where shadows spun,
A spectral waltz, where past and future ran.
The mirror’s surface shimmered with cosmic light,
Reflecting the pain of eternal nights.
In its glass, the truth lay bare,
A portrait of despair woven with care.
Lost souls wandered in its depths,
Seeking solace in forgotten dreams.
The mirror of astral woe, an oracle of desires unfulfilled,
Showed the fractured longings, forever stilled.
Each glance through its surface revealed,
A truth too hostile to be concealed.
The mirror, a portal to endless regret,
Held the sighs of desires unmet.
In its heart, the astral woe persisted,
A reflection of the soul’s dreams, twisted.
Each vision was a lamentation’s cry,
A whisper of the self, destined to die.
The mirror’s glance, both cold and cynical,
Showed reflections both dark and whimsical.
In its depths, where illusions lay,
Reflected the tears that never dried.
The mirror of astral woe, an endless scroll,
Revealed the fragments of fractured dreams.
In its depths, where every glimmer faded,
The mirror revealed secrets never laid.
Esther Elizabeth Racah
© Esther Racah 2025. All rights reserved.