I Feel Myself Torrent Here

I screamed into a pillow until my throat bled. I wrote letters I’d never send, filled with words I’d never speak. I tore a photograph in half—not out of spite, but out of honesty. That person wasn't me anymore. That person had been standing still while the river rose around her knees, pretending she wasn't getting wet.

By Tuesday, I couldn’t sit still. My leg bounced under my desk. My pen skated across paper without my permission, drawing the face of a boy I’d loved and lost to silence, not death. By Thursday, I was crying in the shower without sadness. Laughing in the grocery store without joy. Everything was leaking. Everything was flowing.

Outside, the clouds were gathering again. Good, I thought. Let it come. i feel myself torrent

My friend Lena called it a breakdown. My doctor called it "emotional dysregulation" and wrote a prescription for something that came in a teal bottle. But I knew better. This wasn’t breaking. This was melting. The dam I’d spent twenty years building—brick by polite brick, mortar made of "I'm fine" and "don't worry about it"—had cracked along a fault line I hadn't known existed.

"I feel myself torrent," I whispered into the collar of my jacket. I screamed into a pillow until my throat bled

The hardest part wasn't the sadness. It was the rage. A hot, stupid, beautiful rage at every person who’d told me to calm down. At every teacher who’d said "too sensitive." At every version of myself who’d smiled and nodded and drowned a little more.

"I feel myself torrent," I said again. This time, I didn't whisper. And this time, it wasn't a confession. That person wasn't me anymore

Not all at once. Not the merciful flood that sweeps you away clean. No, this was worse and better: a steady, stubborn torrent. Every suppressed shout, every bite of swallowed anger, every night I’d pressed my fists into my thighs to keep from screaming—they were all waking up. They wanted out. They wanted air.