There is a difference between knowing and understanding.
You know how I feel because I have told you;
I explain my emotions
and you chose to listen.
I understand how you feel because I live it.
You do not tell me,
but I understand
exactly
the emotions
that course through your
body and mind and soul.

I never chose this.
And I never wanted it.

When I tell people I am an empathic
they mostly roll their eyes.
They have no idea what I am talking about,
until I touch their skin
and relay
every emotion
of their
whole
lives.

Then they call me freak.

But I cannot help it.
Anything that feels pain I feel pain for.

When your teeth sparkle in laughter's sunlight
mine twinkle under the changing moon.
When your skin turns searing red with rage
mine glows white hot as a smith's hammer.
When your lungs burn from submerged depression
mine are right there
waiting
to release their final breathe.

There are those
who turn and marvel
like I am some otherworldly being
meant to be shoved in a glass cage
and goggled at in a zoo.
They tell me it is a gift to understand.
To that I say:
this world is no utopia.
How would you like to see every flaw?
How would you like to drown in the ocean of tears?
How would you like to experience your skin raw from all the fury?
How would you like feel the ragged edges of scars
raised as far as they were cut
with every curious brush of your fingertips?
You wouldn't.
This is no gift
unless from Hell.

In my lifetime
I have tried to make it
so the world doesn't hurt
so that I don't hurt.
Now I know;
I can't.

I can't whip the tears from each child's soft chin.
I can't massage the ice from each man's shriveled heart.
I can't dowse the flames from each woman's fiery tongue.
I can't.

The only thing I can do
is change my position within this world
in an attempt
to heal my scars.

And I am not sure which soothes my pain more:
surrounding myself
with those from whom I receive the most
sorrow and anger and dread
because they
understand me;
they can help,
or
engulfing myself
within the entourage of those who always smile:
to drown out all the pain
and push the world aside.