Nothingness

There’s a heart-sized hole in the hollow of my chest.

I want to reach out to it, to touch it, to soothe it, but all I feel is black nothingness.

It’s not something that is. It’s something that’s not.

I don’t have a heart.

I have a hole.

Sometimes it's a vortex, sucking in every last bit of vitality, motivation or hope.

Sometimes it grows tentacles, reaching into my throat and down to my digestive track and wreaking havoc with my appetite.

Sometimes it’s this dull ache, like today, that sits heavy on my chest. Something I have to lug along with me wherever I go. Something that slows me down with its cumbersomeness.

Sometimes it feels like it’s a coffin I’m carrying. Like what wasn’t can no longer be. I can do nothing about filling up this lack, and I’m doomed to carrying this dead weight on my heart as a remembrance of what wasn’t.

When I initially discovered this hole after months of peeling back protections of anxiety, numbness, perfectionism and silence, I was terrified of it.

I was afraid to peer in lest I fall into the pit and never emerge.

I feared that the blackness would engulf me and overwhelm me.

But now when the ache is so dull and unreachable, I want that blackness to spill over. I want those murky waves to travel across my chest in painful rushes.

I want to feel.

I want this tight ball of condensation, which grows heavier and heavier with each passing day, to finally precipitate into golden drops of tears. I need a volcano to erupt. I need a thunderstorm to let all this pressure free.

Anything but to carry this numbness with me. Anything but to lug around this heaviness.

Anything but to bear a coffin on my heart.