Fire

Sorrow. Grief. Despair. Sadness.

Emotions that you can never explain. And for some reason they feel so much more powerful than happiness. You might not remember all your happy moments, but the moments that wrenched your heart always stay with you. Sadness makes us questions everything, makes us look deep into our hearts and fight with our demons. The one we didn't know existed. The ones we pretended don't exist. When something clenches your heart, all your fears wash over you all at once. And you feel almost paralysed. Lost. And exhausted. 

Sometimes it creates a storm inside you, wrecking everything, forcing the tears out of your eyes that you seem to have no control over. It's like an uncontrolled blazing fire.

Then there's melancholy. More like a controlled burn. It's been inside you for so long, you've even forgotten that there's a cause to the ache that you feel. It simply becomes a part of you, not going away, chipping away the rest of you, making it's presence known occasionally leading to long restless nights. 

Sometimes you feel angry for feeling so helpless. Tired of the sinking, heavy feeling that has grasped you. You want to let go of it. You want to cry, but your eyes won't acquiesce. You want your brain to shut up but it won't. Your heart seems too heavy to carry around, every breath you take requires extra effort, and you just want to cocoon into yourself under a blanket, never come out, and escape reality.

So you lie awake at nights, willing yourself to feel anything but this heaviness that has enveloped you, eventually falling asleep with dreams coloured in the dark colours of your soul. 

Then one day, it happens. The trigger can be anything. Innocent words spoken by a friend, a distant memory, a stranger with a familiar face that you saw while coming home. And all your emotions come flowing out. Like flood waters, uncontrollable, wiping everything out, clearing the slate. Only in this case, they aren't destructive. They are cathartic. And the tears that come out of your eyes finally take the numbness away. It hurts. It really hurts. All the regret, the broken dreams, the hatred toward yourself, wash over you. You cry for a long time, and eventually the heaviness goes away replaced by an emptiness yet lightness that you haven't felt for a long time. 

And though the pain hasn't miraculously gone, you're on your way out of the proverbial tunnel. 

The road seems long, you still can't see the promised light, the end is not in sight. But you're on your way.