On Continuing After Hope Is Lost (A Poem of Sorts)

I came back to myself.

I must have been on a trip. Maybe to the beach or the city.

I swung open the door. I dropped my bags. I was glad to see me.

Everything is as I left it. My hopes on the shelf. My rejections strewn across the floor.

I resumed what I started, but now with a sullen ache of what may never come.

The letters slip my feet as I work. I slip from desk to kitchen, desk to kitchen, desk to kitchen, desk to bed.

I never picked up my humiliations. I have failed even that.