…i appreciate anyone who is listening, however you are listening, and i most especially appreciate you when you speak, so that i can listen too…
“Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts.”
-Ovid-
I know anger.
I watch it scream through deadened hungry eyes. It is centuries high, a skyscraping talon-fingered mess of red feathers, with a beak sharpened and stabbing as hiss and smoke sweat the sky. My warrior instinct is to be freed. Shackled and grounded at the foot of this beast, I summon a towering sword of light and stab slices into its silent shrieking neb.
Its breast is a volcano, molten magma beneath skin, shards of broken yellow glass calamus needling into and out of its breath, pulsating fluorescently. Each wave of the blade is met by smiling bites, each attempt to break free increases the power of an unending monster. It oozes and translucently bleeds internally hidden red.
I am handless. I am empty. I am defeated.
This anger feels ancestral. I know I knew it most of my life, but here at the foot of the spiral wrapped leather claws, I can see that our bond is not exclusive. It is chained to me as much as I am to it. It fills my ears with paddling cackling flames and gravity throws inferno into my head holes.
We aren’t meant for each other.
It enjoys my fantasy violence. My want to leave it, increases our connection. We are ripped and cut together, molded sarcastically, holding pain in the missing space between us. My air hurts, its density is a skeletal hunger in lava filled lungs.
Inhale explosion. Exhale explosion.
I give up the fight. The only way out is to go in. I let the scarlet glow consume me, and I am swallowed. I am full of it. The anger that stood so tall above, its lifetimes of fight, shrinks and cowers with me in shadows we have made together. We feel sad, hazy, and clear all at once. The skin under our eyes falls.
We are old. We wrinkle and darken.
Emotion is more powerful when given distance. So much of what I have been saying is our voice, not my own, and I could just as easily hide in this shadow as become it, or move away and let life (light) hold me instead.
I can’t live my life with anger, I can’t live my life in anger, I can’t live my life for anger, and I can’t live my life as anger.
The embers wither until flat matted dirty black nothing fills my canvas perception. The anger cries meekly in the corner of an empty stage and becomes a hairy, crumpled and curled naked man. I bring a sponge and cold water to him and clean slowly.
I love anger. But we no longer need to know each other.
I drip with his tears and massage him, watching our shared heaviness heave and hold, breathe and leave. I cover him in a fading glittery white robe to dry, swaddling him in scintillance. We hug and silently let go. The cloth tightens.
Inhaled heavens. Exhaled heavens.
I let go. We disappear. Volcanoes underwater can make islands. Life is on the surface. Surrounded by waves, covered in fruit and rainbow, birds branched on palmed trees and salted wind. My mouth tastes like a pretzel, my mind hangs like a hammock.
I am not angry. I am not mad.
I’m available to be myself, to see myself, to meet myself in the ocean. I dive beneath a wave and watch the earth in all directions. I close my eyes and float. I hold my breath and smile. I know myself, I need myself, I am myself.
I am not angry. I am not mad.
What a treat it was to listen to your docile voice come through my computer's speakers. You are not angry. You are not mad. When I listened to you speak those words, I could feel that. Thank you for shining light on your shadow and for sharing that experience with us. And your vocab dude ~ next level. The creativity your spirit contains inspires me. You are shining!
This made me cry. ❤️