The fiction piece "A Shelf of Glass Bottles" by Alec R. is one that incorporates heartbreak and relies heavily on metaphor. It communicates the story of a male who had gotten his heart broken once, and that heart break destroyed him and consumed so much of his emotion that it drained him of it entirely. At the beginning of every paragraph, the phrase "His concept of self was like a pane of glass..." followed by the reason for this simile is repeated. Hidden in all these metaphors (the main character "drinking" his emotion from all these bottles") a tale is told of a young man who was hurt severely and eventually the man who had hurt him caused so much emotion within him and so intensely that the protagonist was eventually left numb. In this piece, the use of literary tools helps communicate the raw, gritty emotion of the character— the boy this passage is written about. As I said, similes and metaphors were relied on heavily, and it added to the melancholy tons being communicated.
  

This passage touched me as a reader, and I took on a sense of sympathy for the protagonist, as the writer did an outstanding job of describing the suffering he and his past lover put him through. The piece ends with the lines, "He spent a good portion of his time lying on the floor, waiting for his current emotions to dry out so that he could just be without feeling for once in his life. Eventually, he got his wish and thought nothing of the shards of glass surrounding him." These lines leave an impression on the reader, as the text concludes on a depressing notes that leaves readers on the verge of tears, feeling sympathetic for the main character. After reading this, I began to think about how much a few words and a couple actions could impact a person— maybe I could end up as the reason somebody drinks their own emotion until they go numb.