It is not a pit, though it is not less cavernous.
A chasm able to swallow every echo of music,
every well-meaning platitude,
and the sound of your clawing at walls slick with doubt.
It is not fire, though it burns no less.
It gives no light, nor warmth
as the slow, ceaseless gnawing of embers
consumes even that which once stood against the wind for decades.
It is not darkness, though it is not less.
A black cloak at the day’s horizon,
an obsidian knife severing now from tomorrow,
cleaving “I” from “you”
and any clear memory of better days.
But it is above all
a great and ponderous weight.
A smothering tide,
an impersonal onyx slab blotting out the sky
as the will to stand another day is crushed from your lungs.
A gravitic pull under which the lifting of your heart
even an inch above the floor
is a mighty act
undone the moment you let go.
But
it is also
a lie.
Or so I was told by that man,
the one who, for a few hours, was the very anvil of Almighty God.
He said there is more to it, if we will sit with him for just three days.
And surely he, of all people, would know
if it is really worth the weight.
Soli Deo Gloria.
© 2025 Joshua Bowman. All rights reserved.