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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The dark hours are the worst

They are long and there is no pretending

Only racing thoughts and salty eyes

Raw skin and pounding heart.

If only the small-death called sleep

Could easily take me into its embrace

Then perhaps I would begin to heal

Instead of remaining ragged.

I wake without a rested mind

My eyes red, my spirit drowning

in all the tears I still have yet to cry

There is an ocean of emptiness

Bursting from my body

And it grows worse during the dark hours

When I can no longer hide.