THE STORM WITHIN

There is a storm living in my chest 
Gentle, but steady,
And it’s growing day by day.

Lately,
It has commanded my attention 
By its new release of emotional turbulence 
Which causes my walk to become unstable 
In all of my decisions.

This intruder lives rent-free and is reckless,
Like a ravishing wolf, feasting on its prey, 
After a long chase.

I can feel the pain of its claws
Scratching its initials on the inside of my heart,
Like it’s trying to probe its exits,
But falsely so.

People say, “Just breathe,”
But every inhale feels like borrowing space
from a burning room,
And every exhale tries to escape me.

I keep telling myself,
Emotions are temporary,
But this one shows up with luggage
and calls my mind home.

Some nights, I try to talk it down,
But feelings don’t speak a language,
They speak gravity,
And this one keeps pulling me
to the heaviest parts of myself.

But in the middle of this darkness,
I hear a heartbeat—
faint, stubborn, unapologetically alive.

And I think to myself, maybe,
This storm isn’t here to break me—
Maybe it’s here
to teach me how to rise above its weight.

And so, I continue to breathe.

Wilford Barker.