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I  tore up the original piece I was writing for this blog. I was trying entirely too hard to be pretty. To fit in a pretty box. When I went back to edit it, I realized there was a huge piece of me missing. The core. The crust. Truth is, I’m not that pretty. My crust isn’t ready made. I’m lumpy and layered and complicated and full. I spill over. I write poetry that pants and drips and begs for a part two. My most authentic poems arrived in a series. I started writing poems about sickness and silence. I started writing about the things I said I never would. I started sharing secrets. And the weight I lost when the words came out, is immeasurable. I am breathing better. I am seeing better. I am finding myself in a place I tried to hide from. And she is beautiful. She is valuable. She has been here all along. I have just unwrapped her. Dusted her off.

When I miss someone a lot, I often smell their scent in crowds. If they’ve slept in my bed, I smell their cologne long after they’ve left. Sometimes it seems I smell it after the sheets have been washed. It seems that once I’m deeply connected to somebody, I carry them with me. If I don’t make a conscious choice to “turn the energy off,” I will continue to feel them in various ways. The way I smell, feel, and hear things has always been unusual. A few months back, I had a moment where I questioned what I bring to relationships. Wondered if I brought anything at all. Well, that’s what it is- my ability to connect so deeply. And this translates into everything I do. The thing, the thing that people love about me, is that I catch things other people don’t. I appreciate things other people don’t understand. I’m an intuitive, physical and emotional empath. Or a “super empath.” I work extra hard to set up and maintain boundaries around energy, because if I don’t, existing is exhausting. Crowded places (subways, night clubs, Times Square etc) can be torture for me. I’ve spent the past two years working on energetic, spatial, and emotional boundaries because of this. That’s the part that makes other empaths say “being an empath sucks.” But for me, it has been a gift. Something that has given me strength and courage. All my life, I have struggled with figuring out what it is I’m actually good at. Struggled with wondering whether or not I’m actually smart. But that’s it- the thing that has been there all along. The thing I came in with. The thing that sets me apart.

Its the thing that holds me together. The thing that doesn’t fit neatly in any space. The thing that doesn’t play well with other words or present well in a sentence. The thing I tried to escape because it meant I cry too much, laugh too loud, feel too much. I’ve known for a long time that the way I experience emotions is different. Things that most people see as “deep” are often the tip of the ice berg for me. There is almost always more to something, the way I see it. Not everybody likes this. Not everybody appreciates these things. It means I sometimes opt out of  “normal” things because they are too heavy for me. And most days, I know what I can carry. If it’s too much, it’s too much. It means I spend a lot of time alone because I need the space to breathe. I need to be alone with myself because I connect with other energy fields so deeply. I need to recharge. But it also means I’m forced to work on myself at all times. And this is very much a good thing, because I’ll be evolving for the rest of my life.

Feeling a lot, means I give a lot. So if we get to that point, I’m going to love you in a way you probably thought was impossible. I’m going to devour you. And I’m going to want the same back. I went through several years when I wasn’t really writing. I started again around my 18^th birthday. After reading several of my poems, a friend said to me that he was surprised I’d never been in love. He said, “When I think ‘Melanie,’ I think ‘love.” I felt flattered. I felt understood. But looking back, I know that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the thing that held me together. That wasn’t anywhere near my crust. The thing is filling. And my filling is full. I am not about love or sex or passion. I am all of those things. Because I am so full. And I am spilling out in this, in hopes of giving my thoughts a personality, a presence, a part of me that is still. A piece that can’t be moved. So I hope you will drink up. I will be writing about inner peace, pain, and of course, passion. I may not always leave you panting. But I hope to leave you pondering and I hope you will find some piece of you in this filling. I hope it will fill you up. Fin.