The dungeon of sadness was a trap of beauty and delight,
Luring dreams and visions to embark on a journey in its labyrinthine trails,
Until they were soaked in sorrow and grief,
Like dead leaves trapped in a swamp.
A suffocating heft bore down, laden with despair,
Wrapping around like an overwhelming shroud.
The walls wept, their stone faces slick
With tears of ages long forgotten.
A faint glow oozed through the fractures,
Not of longing but of some unearthly dread,
Casting shapes that jigged like phantoms,
Teasing the lost who wandered within.
Corroded chains clung to the slammer’s bones,
Each link was an eerie monument to captive dreams.
The silence wailed louder than screams,
Like oppression depressing the weary senses.
This labyrinth of grief and distress became a realm of nightmares,
Where there was no escape but only deception.
The sky became overcrowded with ominous clouds,
Which smothered all the luminaries striving to gleam through the gloom.
A mist of languid sorrow and melancholy steered like a lugubre presage,
Hope was a fleeting spectre whose whispers drowned in the ocean of oblivion.
The mirror of torments reflected the anguish of each soul,
And all the joy and light were depleted in the dungeon of sadness.
The maw of despair devoured the time,
And its beauty lay in the perfection of its torments,
Such a cruel art that was engraved in endless suffering dreams,
A lament that echoed eternally in the void.
Esther Elizabeth Racah
