In Praise of Despair

Sink, wail, and abandon all light
    for a place where none is
    and nothing shall touch you.

In that place where vision fails
    learn to navigate by feel
    beginning with the floor.

(If you have not found it
    let despair do its work and fall
    until you meet your foundation.)

A prison it is not–a fortress
    for you to persist, intact,
    unbroken by the world:
    that is the irony of despair.

Once you have survived,
    outlasted all destruction,
    emerge from the dark
    with your glittering soul, and rise

Into the daylight where you belong
    giving thanks for that shelter
    which saved you.