The Empath

by Cheryl Merrick

Open to the energy around me
     I feel both others warmth and their joy,
     and their fears and anxiousness to be loved.

I cringe in pain
     when I see an animal hurt or
     a tree with a branch broken.

Cruelty, selfishness, and violence
     are incomprehensible to me.

Feeling others pain, suffering, and stress,
I yearn to heal them.


Then overwhelmed by the immenseness of emotion around me
     and by the huge weight of sensory input,
        (colors, noises, movement, light, and smells),
     which surrounds me,
     I withdraw inside into the quiet haven of seclusion
        to feel nature around me;
        to recharge my batteries;
        to process all the data I've received;
        and heal myself.