Bellyache

From the author of Good Grief, an intimate collection of poems and prose which offers a glimpse into the mind of a highly sensitive person, or empath.

I have a bellyache
from constantly absorbing
all this pain.

I’d ask you to refrain from telling me,
but your eyes already have.

For anyone who has ever felt everything a little too much, and never had the words for it, Bellyache offers the language you’ve been missing.

In this intimate collection, Brianna Pastor writes about discovering, as an adult, that she is a highly sensitive person: someone who feels not only her own emotions but the emotions of everyone around her. Moving through Body, Mind, and Soul, her poems trace what that depth costs, from the overwhelm and old wounds to the exhaustion of carrying other people’s pain, and what it gives back.

Pastor’s voice is unmistakably her own: raw, precise, and free of formula. Bellyache is a companion for sensitive souls and a window for the people who love them. The world needs more empathy, and that starts with understanding the people who feel the most.