The emptiness is growing and growing inside me.

It will be here soon.

That’s what the people told me, even more times, but I’m beginning to believe it’s true.

I am getting closer to being an orphan. I want to cry but I’m holding it back. Tears wouldn’t help, they never do. Not today, anyway. Today, I need to get through this. I can’t afford to worry about anything else.

I look over at the girl sitting next to me. Her name’s Emma.

She’s a nice girl, I think. She even smiles at me every now and then. But I can tell she doesn’t like me, that’s for sure.

I keep looking over at the girl. It seems like she’s asleep.

I should sleep, too, I know. I haven’t



The emptiness is growing and swallowing you, like a black hole. A void inside your heart, a bottomless void that won’t let go, no matter what you do. You’re going crazy, in and out of madness, but there’s nothing inside your head, just a deep, dark, empty silence, a space that’s never gonna fill up with hope and meaning. You try to breathe, but the breath is stuck in your chest. You try to think, but you have nothing to think about. Everything you think about is so bad, every thought feels like you’re killing your own soul. You want to die but you can’t do it, so you go out and get wasted, because you have nothing better to do. It’s like walking in a desert without water, the dry air burning your lungs, your head full of emptiness and bad thoughts and memories. It’s like being alone, like being in space. You


The emptiness is growing and growing. The desert seems to be on fire. And it’s hard to tell if the wind is rising. Or not. Sometimes it feels as though the wind were rising from the bottomless pit that is our national conscience.

We’ve all been there. Sometimes, it’s the guilt that makes it feel as if the wind were rising. In other words, it’s a feeling of not being good enough that creates that wind. And as you grow up, you grow out of guilt and learn to move on. But sometimes, and especially if you get married, a feeling of guilt just keeps getting more and more intense. It’s almost as if there’s a force driving it, and as the years go by, it gathers more and more momentum until it breaks out of us in some kind of explosion.

We’ve all been there. Sometimes it’s the blame that makes it feel as if the


You feel yourself rot, quickly. nothing but a pile of dust. you feel your face. your face. you see your face. face your face. your face your face your face your face your face your face your face your face your face.

you fall into your own thoughts. you think of things. you think of things things. you think of things things things things things things things things things things things things things things things.

You hear a soft sound and feel your body shaking. you feel your body shaking. your body your body your body your body your body. you feel your body you feel your body your body. your body you body your body your body your body your body your body your body your body your body. your body your body your body your body your body.

you're a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust. a pile of dust

-Samuel Richards 1992