I have always been emotional
and I do not feel things in half-measures.
It is a blistering heatwave of happiness,
a torrential downpour of sadness,
a shattering earthquake of anger.

I take everything to new levels,
every slight feeling and thought
magnified and amplified hundreds of times over
in the echo chamber of my skull
until it consumes me and I cannot see
any other way than this.

The negativity always reverberates the strongest,
spreading from temple to toes
and I worship the bad brain stuff
until it is a giant dark shadow
hanging over me and keeping me down.

Sometimes I wish I could be more temperate –
a mild spring day with flowers delicately blooming
and all you need is a light jacket for the lilting breeze,
or a winter morning with a light frost on the windows
and a slight pinch of the chill at your nose.

My mother has always told me that I am too much,
that no one wants to be blinded or burned,
no one wants to be frozen to their core.

People want the river to flow along gently,
and never have the boat rocked
or pushed slightly off the chartered course
and they do not want to be sucked into a devastating maelstrom.
No one wants to live in or around a never-ending storm,
but I will not change for anyone.
I would rather feel everything with such intensity
than feel nothing at all.

– a thank you for those who have weathered the storm