Into the Mists of Night

Into the Mists of Night

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A pulsing, pounding dark refrain;
a song sung to my troubled mind
in cadence with the tumbling torrents.

The mists swirl;
the ghost-like tendrils
sway in mesmerizing fashion
pushed by the sympathetic air
in purposeful currents
matching, mirroring, mourning,
the cascading waters.

The first faint glow of
eastern fire struggles to
find a purchase,
its delicate fingers
grasping at trees and rocks,
at the very earth I stand on,
in vain.

The river, an obsidian sheen,
offers a distorted face with vacant eyes.
"How clever," I think, as I see
myself as I really am.

The music fades,
muffled by the gauzy air,
until only the refrain remains:
I will comfort you;
I will wash your pain away;
I will hold you in my swaying embrace ...
forever.

Temptation battles with intellect;
I touch the swirling darkness.
The cold is transformed into ...
nothingness.

"Nothingness."
I taste the sweetness of the word;
its opium promise plays along my nerves.

I am floating,
consumed by nothingness.
The music returns.
The darkness has kept its promise:
I dissolve into the mists of night.

An entry for Round 1 of "Invalid Item" 
Prompt: Depression
Maximum: 40 lines
Line Count: 40
Form: Free Verse