Despair. It lies in the heart of that Syrian girl who clings to the last breathe of her parents as she sits in destruction painted red. Sketched all over the reedy skin and bones of the young boy living in the impoverished outskirts of Congo. It is found where a homeless woman is left freezing on the cold streets of Toronto. Consuming an American man who is broken by the arrogance of some “law enforcer” who has the audacity to think that he is more “civilized” due to a conceived “privileged” colour of his skin.

Despair, is in the halls of schools where students are forced to question their identities by the piercing glares and stinging words of social norms and expectations. It surrounds graduates as they are slapped with their ever growing debt in the market of unemployment. It exists as we chain the capabilities of the disabled when we should be switching mentalities from disable to enable.

It is everywhere. Despair welcomes you and the reasons vary. It never turns you away as it steadily overpowers you. It comes wave after wave. In a sequence of eloquent phases. In persuasive paces. Slowly and gradually the waves develop. Just like the waves of the ocean during a storm. They develop gently and then grow aggressively…immensely…uncontrollably. As the waves of the storm progress, the phases of your despondency steadily swallow you.

Phase I:

A wave of sadness settles in pitifully. It slowly pulls you in an ocean of uncalled for negative thoughts. Your chest gets heavier the more you think, the more you breathe. A clamp abruptly clutches your emotions, your thoughts, and squeezes them tighter and tighter. The wave grows…

Phase II:

A strong wave of anger aggressively gushes in. You want to scream, shout, crash, smash anything. Others fall into deep silence. They question whether they should cry or scream. It is the kind of silence that is filled with too much shock to form words or comprehend actions. The wave feeds. The wave swallows. The wave enjoys…

Phase III:

SILENCE! A sudden state of blankness spreads. Haziness. Blurriness. Confusion. Your emptiness leisurely drags you deeper and deeper into the ocean of your reveries as the waves continue to engulf you. Loneliness and fear then await you. Upon your arrival, fear scrutinizes you and shames you. Loneliness then timidly greets you and shyly sits beside you. It pats you on the head and on your back, thinking that maybe this will ease your pain. You whimper. You are about to suffocate…

Phase IV:

Hope! Love! Strength! Persistence! Living! They shoot in, breaking the silence of your desolation. They remind you that your heart is not some lost treasure and your spirit is not some wrecked ruin. They scream how big you are! How important you are! Your despair becomes the necessary trail of your empowering journey. And here you are, a pearl carried to the shores by the same wave that swallowed you. This very same despair that weathered you becomes nothing but a part of you. A part that takes you to the other aesthetic side of your rebuilt illuminating self.

May your days of despair grow into an illuminating path ahead.

Image Credit: Photographer Victoria Knobloch
Published 09/2015 @ Incite Magazine
Edited May 7, 2021