The mirror of despair stood like a monolith,
A monolith, unmoved, defiant.
Before that cursed glass, shadows loomed,
And light would pass, leaving darkness consumed.
Once it held the grace of life,
Now, only hollow faces survived.
The air grew poisonous, a burden to bear,
A chill that whispered, don’t you dare.
Cold breath hung in the air, a fleeting mist,
A ghostly trace that once existed.
The surface touched, cold as stone,
Yet deeper still, a soul felt alone.
The mirror of despair exhaled a sorrow so vast,
Trapping a soul within the past.
A scream clawed up, lodged in the throat,
But all that came was silence’ coat.
A voice was lost, like fading light,
Consumed by dread, engulfed by night.
The reflection showed not just a face,
But every fear that none would trace.
Youth decayed, bones turned brittle,
Skin faded grey, and life became little.
Colours drained from joy and life,
Each moment was replaced by endless strife.
The mirror of despair pulled deeper still,
Into a world that froze all will.
A heart, once whole, now torn apart,
Reflected back in shards of dark.
Each fragment whispered death’s embrace,
No warmth, no light, no saving grace.
Graves appeared, their earth undone,
And in those pits lay the one.
A figure frail, devoid of breath,
Caught in the arms of endless death.
Turning away was not allowed,
Something held firm, no escape endowed.
The pull of doom, a heavy chain,
Bound this soul to eternal pain.
The mirror’s depths revealed no end,
Only endless dread, no hope to mend.
Shadows closed in, all around,
A suffocating, endless bond.
The weight of death felt so near,
Its breath was so cold, its touch so clear.
It whispered low, in the ear so slow,
That all was lost; no light could show.
Cracks spread wide across the glass,
Like spiders’ webs that grew en masse.
Each line it split tore at the soul,
A mirror now of death’s control.
And there stood a figure, consumed by dread,
A living soul among the dead.
The mirror of despair held a final sigh,
A grim reflection left to die.
The hours blurred, the days bled dry,
Lingering there, without knowing why.
No future lay beyond the glass,
Just shadows of a life that passed.
Each breath became a hollow sound,
A heart that barely dared to pound.
Lingering there, devoid of air,
In endless, hopeless, cold despair.
No warmth could reach this haunted place,
No hope could heal what’s been erased.
A ghost within the glass remained,
And death, it seemed, forever chained.
Esther Elizabeth Racah
