despair      
a hollow ache
and empty gut
when a life invested
is laid bare
to the truth
of misaligned
roads
and all that is you
is proven
a little off track
a little too soft

despair
when all
the risks
have been revealed
fruitless

an effort
to drag every thought
from the
pit of fear
growing silently
the panic
gripping every
fiber of your being
telling you to run

despair
when there is
nowhere to turn
this feat of endurance
too much
this constant
second guessing
eroding
what is left

a body is hard pressed
to contain
such anguish
a mind
is disciplined
for only so much
before
connections sever
and something is lost
that cannot be regained

the mind
is hard pressed
to describe
its own torment
the sense of self
constructed so carefully
is exposed as temporal
and
under pressure
will begin to crack

there is no irony
just abandoned ignorance
biology and chemistry
and
a plagued
awareness of consciousness