There is a feeling of emptiness like a pit at the base of my throat. Something inside is begging for a voice but my mind is burying its cries

I feel weight on my shoulders as if gravity is working overtime trying to hold me down, to ground me.

My eyes begin to water and this unwanted feeling of painful darkness builds, I can feel it.

Its looking for an escape.

I swallow a few times and start taking deep breathes

– in 2,3,4 out 2,3,4

I here thunder in the distance and I glance at the window

it’s starting to rain

– in 2,3,4 out 2,3,4

With each roll of thunder I feel it ripple through my chest

And banging from the inside, calling for the damn to breach.

The release is unavoidable

– in 2,3, 4 out 2,3,4 – swallow, repeat.

The pressure builds and shows no sign of relenting.

I continue the ritual as my my mind comes to terms with its fate.

It can’t win….

So I succumb to the thunder, itself a silver lining, it muffles the sounds of my surrender.

The window is opaque blanketed from the relentless rain, as the tears flow from my eyes with the intensity of a river cutting a gorge.

The explosion of emotion rushes in, I’m gasping for air between the wails and the cries

But I know this too shall pass I think, providing a nod to the futile battle lost

And I take solace in the secrecy of the struggle within and defeat of my will , as no one will ever know

but me and the storm.