in my chest a swelling void

electric hunger humming

heart clenching arrested breath

a text, a smile, a laugh

a tender look, a touch

bring brief alleviation

then thumping, throbbing

begins again, slowly

at first, then escalating

firmly pressing beneath

caged ribs expanding

spreading me wide

open, I want to swallow

life whole - those I love

gulped down inside me

there’s room in there to spare

all the beauty in the world

could not quell the tender bruising

left by restless soul

forever pacing, hunting

for that which might relieve

insatiable desire

During October, theconstantpoet is pulling poetry prompts from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Today’s word was ghough: a hollow place in your psyche that can never be filled; a bottomless hunger for more food, more praise, more attention, more affection, more joy, more sex, more money, more hours of sunshine, more years of your life; a state of panic that everything good will be taken from you too early, which makes you want to swallow the world before it ends up swallowing you.

This is a feeling I’m all too familiar with. Psychological theory might ascribe it to anxious attachment. The Enneagram paradigm might say it’s the famous ‘missing piece’ well-known to Fours. Because this is a feeling I live with all the time with very little respite, I’m well acquainted with these different ways of looking at it. What was so refreshing about this prompt was that I didn’t have to analyze it, explain it, or dissect it… I was just invited to sit with it - to let it be what it is. I found some relief in this - to practice holding and processing what is there instead of trying to do something about it. This relieved the pressure of feeling like I need to fix this quality and instead gently nudged me to get to know it better as it is and always has been. There’s a beauty in that. Even melancholy holds gifts for those able and willing to receive. I received a gift by spending time with this poem.