I'll admit that I wrote my little flash piece "Rainbursts" with some Elliott Smith lyrics at the back of my mind:
Bottle up and explode over and over
Keep the troublemaker below
Push it away and check out for the day…
You're looking at him like you've never known him
But I know for a fact that you have
Last time you cried, who'd you think was inside?
I have always assumed that "him" in the second verse was the "troublemaker" in the first, and I suppose I know intuitively who the troublemaker is. There's a sense of being taken over by one's own less savory nature when pent-in stress precipitates one into outbursts of emotional abandon. These moments are never pleasant to look back on.
There is a danger when writing fiction from the viewpoint of a flawed or unadmirable character that the natural tendency of many readers to identify with a story's viewpoint character will lead them to empathize with and excuse regrettable thoughts or behavior—and will lead to the interpretation that the author wanted to manipulate the reader into liking an unlikable person.
If the author themself is an unlikable person, then the whole enterprise can come to appear a self-serving exercise.
I suppose this is why I hesitate to write stories that hew too closely to my own experience. "Rainbursts" also is not really about me, but it cribs a detail or two from my own life, and this alone is enough to make me hesitant to admit that very fact.
The editors of Selcouth Station very kindly picked the story up, and it is on their website now. You can read it here.