I walk through the night, consumed by darkness, smothered in gloom. To light the path, one must submit to hope. I reach for it, grasping, but the candle flame burns.
Recoiling, hope fades, and I sink, drowning in the black.
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Arden Ruth 
Ooh, dark. I loved this! ❤
I’m feeling that a lot these days!
Some times it looks dark no matter what you do.
Feels that way sometimes… Thanks for reading!
I kinda feel like we’re entering a new dark age, too…
Right? I woke up with some goods and then immediately got hit with so many bad pieces. Seems never-ending these days!
Ugh. Meant good news, not goods. 🙂
“Drowning in the black.” Wow!
Thanks for reading!
I love the overwhelming despair of this, the sinking and drowning in the dark. My one quibble is with the line “To light my path, one must submit to hope” — “my” feels jarring against “one”. Changing the determiner to “the” instead of “my” would work.
Thanks! And I appreciate the feedback. I switched between my, the, and others and just couldn’t land on one I loved!
The darkness of lost hope, nothing g can dispel that.
Thank you for reading!
So dark. I like how the mood really comes through in forty words!
Thank you!
Smothered in gloom. Been there done that. question: I wonder if the word “the” instead of “my” would fit better with “to light my path” since you used the pronoun “one” instead of “I” ?
Thanks! Yep! I went back and forth and chose the wrong one but didn’t want to change it while voting was open! 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Since both the night and the character were consumed and smothered, I read this from the perspective of Night. Not sure that was intentional but I really liked the effect.
Ooh I like that! Let’s pretend I meant to do that. ☺️
These are some seriously dark times at the moment. I can only hope we’re beginning to see some light at the end. One minor criticism is that integration of the word one. It felt jarring in the middle of such a good sentence and pulled me out of the piece. But I knew it was there to meet the prompt.
Yep! I’m hearing that a lot. I’m going to change my path to the path after voting closes. Thanks for the input!
I can fully relate to this. I love it.
Dark twins unite!! 🙂
So many great words in this: consumed, smothered, recoiling. Especially recoiling.
Thank you, Cyn!
‘Smothered in gloom’, ‘drowning in the black’ are both beautiful phrases to capture the hopelessness. I loved this piece even though it’s so sad.
Thank you Sanch! I didn’t set out to write something so bleak, but sometimes it just happens!
I’m intrigued by the word choice of having to submit to hope and the possibility of it burning us – like we should have hope, but feel like we can’t for some reason.
I’ve re-typed this twelve times because I just can’t seem to articulate how I feel nowadays. My post above seems to be as close as I’m going to get. I guess as an example, I was super happy when I woke up and saw the Time Person of the Year announcement yesterday, and literally the next notification sent me plummeting as it was regarding the House passing a gun rights expansion bill. It just feels lately that every time I give myself that tiny bit of hope, it’s quashed in the next instant, almost as if hope (light) is spread so thin across all of us that it can’t permeate any of us enough to stick around, so the dark keeps winning… Man, I’m depressing today. Haha.
I’ve felt that, too! I would have said so in my first comment but I didn’t want to project anything onto your piece. 🙂 It’s hard to maintain anything resembling hope sometimes. The little victories never feel like enough, but they are still victories. Hang in there 💛
Thanks Laura!!
I love your take on the prompt, drawing a parallel between hope and a tiny flame.
Thank you Robin!
I love the idea of walking through the night, it reads to physical not just in reference to the time. Thanks for sharing.
Fab❤❤❤❤