The feeling of vulnerability. It’s when one has to be handled the carefullest, but also leave them space to break. It’s like a balloon, a bubble. To me, feeling vulnerable is teetering on the edge. You’re either going to keep it buried inside you, the cracks mended by invisible duct tape. The usual facade. You appear to be fine but you’re not. You implode. Or you’re going to snap, let it all go, and completely shatter. You explode. I think of it as a vase being knocked over by a rambunctious child. That image of the porcelain vase on the edge of the mahogany table, spinning ever so slowly, the terrified child holding their breath, their heart on the floor. It’s maudlin music combined with isolation. The taste of sadness in your tongue. The weight of your suffocated heart nestled inside your rising and falling chest. It’s nostalgic memories haunting you and inflicting more sadness instead of happiness. It’s the feeling of sinking with a broken life-vest on. It’s when you’re inspired to write incoherent paragraphs, pouring out yourself on the page. It’s being unable to finish your thoughts like