You reach for the drink,
the scroll,
the conversation,
the validation.
Filling up on other people's energy,
mistaking motion for progress.
But none of it touches the thing underneath.
Not really.
It's just a way to escape the darkness.
The moment you describe a feeling,
you're no longer inside it.
Articulating, even beautifully,
means you've climbed into your head to manage.
The mind is good at this.
Offering constructs, labels, explanations.
Suggesting that understanding your feelings,
is the same as moving through them.
It's not.
Real feeling doesn't come with words.
It lives deeper than that.
In places you've spent a lifetime skirting.
The dark corners of your soul,
where every fear and barbed memory lives in obscurity.
Not gone. Just waiting.
Hanging back till you stop outsourcing your relief,
to substances, distractions and other people,
and boldly illumine the shadows to mend your pain.
~L Reed ©2026