I think we're all born with a void within us. It's miniscule initially, we never truly notice it until it's electrified into action at the onset of a traumatic event such as loss or abuse.

Suddenly that gaping space is all we sense. Grief does that. Erodes a person's outer casing of who they thought they were until naught but raw emptiness remains.

That void grows in all dimensions. Taking the place where you thought your heart once was. Suddenly it's harder to breathe as well, ever noticed how life is extinguished at the lungs first and the eyes last?

This black hole is ever-expanding, especially when we're unaware.
Everything that ever happened to hurt you, every sprouting of doubt in your mind and it's growing.

One day you realise the void is bigger than you've ever known it to be. It's uncontrollable, it's all-encompassing; the void has swallowed you down, it's everywhere, it's everything,  it's inside you, around you...

It is you.

Is this what it's like to grow up?