Words; an Illusion of Escape

I was once asked 'Why do you read so much?'
The answer is as simple as it is complicated.
Words are a form of escape,
rather an illusion of escape.
You might ask 'How?'
Well, let me tell you about the smouldering
Desert of Life that I am entrapped in.
It is a living breathing land full of the dead.
It offers no pathways;
a barren land with rippling tentacles of sand
that cloak all traces of existence.
I have staggered through this blistering Sahara
and I swear, it reeks of struggle and pain and decline and despair.
I have fought against the fury of the Wind
and have watched the malevolent Sun collapse under the horizon.
Yet I have been lulled into the deceitful and secure arms of the Night.
Only to face her wrath
as she seduced the Wind to round up a storm,
tying a blindfold of darkness around my eyes,
tightening a noose of sand around my throat.
Death is mercy, but the Night is anything but merciful.
So she withdraws her wrath and watches as I suffer.
As I wish for a death that will not come,
a struggle that will not end- it will never end.
I am ensnared here.

Amid this defeat I have found a sparkle of happiness- an oasis.
A shadowed place that offers shelter
it's crystalline water soothes my dry throat.
Here I feel a tinge of hope
that maybe it's not all suffering,
that maybe there are tiny rays of happiness.
This is what words are to me.
Words are my oasis in this Desert--
A well known fact about deserts, it is quite common for mirages to occur.
And that is what words are to me;
an illusion of escape.