I have all of these terrible feelings. Not just sadness or emptiness, but anger and anxiety. Anger is the worst for me, though. It’s like a seed planted in my chest. It sprouts, grows, blossoms, wrapping around my lungs and quickening my pulse. Makes me want to rip everything around me apart, makes me want to rip myself apart. Sometimes it just gets so built up and I explode, like a geyser erupting with scalding water. All I can do is scream and scream until my throat is as raw as my palpitating heart feels. And then comes the tears. The hot, geyser tears spilling, pouring, spewing down my rage-flushed cheeks. They wash all the anger away, and they leave me empty. As a river has shaped a canyon, my tears have shaped me. They’ve left dark empty tunnels running through me, where all these terrible feelings hide.

“I was very often full of rage and despair. I was always lonely. In spite of all that I was and am in love with life.”