As an empath, I feel all the things. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know how not to feel things, even if they start to consume me. Making things helps. Being creative helps. Writing helps. This poem is one of the outpourings of the healing process.

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There’s a hollow place inside me

That nothing seems to fill.

A hole that’s raw and ragged,

A dark space, leaking guilt.

I fear it will consume me

If I don’t find a way

To end its restless power

And its swirling lies that say

That this pain will never cease

And I will never be made whole

That my wounds will be ripped open

‘Til the life bleeds from my soul.

Somewhere deep inside me

Is the light to overcome

But my edges are all frayed

And my spirit pale and numb.

I can survive a crisis

I can shelter in a storm

I can swim against a crashing flood

And swat away a swarm

But this hollow place will change me

As nothing else has yet

Because I don’t know how to heal

From a wound grown from regret.