I’ve been thinking about rage – the quiet kind that seeps into your blood by small measures, and accumulates over the years without care for the damage done but rage all the same. The kind of pounding, all illuminating anger that gets in between your thoughts and eventually becomes a whirlwind of melancholy pain and self-loathing. How very dull because you know going crazy is particularly boring most of the time
There are old ghosts under my skin, speechless and dancing the same dance repeatedly. They run on the memory of anger that I pushed down too far too long ago. A perfect design except that I am caught in the crossfire. Funny how shooting myself in the foot always seems like a good idea at the time. Oy vey.
Having anger in my sights does me no good – it’s like one of those jelly wrestling contests only I don’t look nearly so good in a bikini. It all slips away when I try to stand up straight. What are the magic words to open up my heart so you can see?
There’s a difference between being angry and getting angry, you know. There’s anger deep inside me, under the frozen ground – like black gold waiting for someone to pick a spot and drill. I’d be rich, rich I tell you if only this analogy ran true. No, I am just built of misspent rage, of broken bits and pieces of a smashed mirror or two. My 7 and 7 years of bad luck was to curse myself with an inability to see into the night and take back what’s mine. A good tantrum is long overdue.
Can’t you see this is not one more apology? I don’t have the words anymore. The truth is there’s only now a simmering, par-boiled echo of the anger I once felt. A simulacrum built from wax, paper and ashes. I need to build a bridge from this no-place to somewhere I can be all that I am, to some-place wherein emotions persist after I’ve said goodbye.
I rarely get angry but I am angry all the same. I may not look angry, you may not know me to be angry but the anger runs in dark, quick curving rivers through my soul. There’s anger in the way I breathe, anger in the little things like getting too busy for myself. There’s anger in that which I let bubble to the surface, and in all that I deny. There’s anger in how little I care about the scrapes I get from climbing trees, and anger in the struggle of each moment I focus upon not breaking down.
If only I could look away while I let off a few well-placed landmines. Boom – there goes my heart again. Dare me to do it? Just call me Dick Dastardly. Unfortunately I’m more the Muttley type *insert evil wheezy laugh*.
I’ve got nothing to prove. I just want to see the end in the beginning. I want to see where I’m going because it comes from where I’ve been, even if where I’ve been was somewhere that looks like hell by any measure. I don’t mind the memory of it itself but I mind that I don’t mind.
I want to hold onto my feelings – to feel them just once even when I’m only looking back. Because someone told me that the way to come to life is to stop the countdown before it gets to lift-off.
Someone told me that the way to be a real girl is to be heard for the sake of being heard, and not for any more or less than that.
You know what you want.
That’s really good.
Anger is energy.
Anger is energy.
Anger is energy.
HOLLER
It is, isn’t it? Hmmm. It doesn’t need words – only space.
I’m all for being angry and having a righteous rage.
But when you talk about looking back so you know where you’re going, it made me thing a bit… well, recently I’ve decided for myself to stop looking anywhere but at where I am right now. Live the day I have and love what I can, find joy in what I can and try not to live in the regrets and hurts of the past or live for the fixes the future promises. Does that make sense?
Hi CK,
I know this rage you speak of and it is a whole different animal than being angry although that is a start. And, there is a huge difference between being angry and getting angry. I’m getting bits of my rage and unlike sister sassy, I am not at a point where the need is to look forward. I’ve done that too much which has allowed my rage to gain power and grow. Funny thing about anger and rage is that when you feel it, you also feel the same amount of pain. Sometimes, I feel like my rage is molten rock deep within me and sometimes there is a fissure that lets some of it out only to cool and seal again. It comes slowly, but never like a volcanic eruption. However, I would like it to be like that and over with. Sometimes, I may steam and spit, but it is a slow process…don’t want to destroy myself or those around me. Even when, I really feel like destroying me.
I liked the Muttley comment…LOL!!! Also, loved the two things at the end, but I would amend the last one because the “way to be real is to be heard for the sake of being heard, and not for any more or less than that.” Continue to let your self be heard and known.
By the way, your writing inspires me to write. I comment in a different way with you much of the time. It is in a way that I used to write, at times, I miss it. Thank you.
Yeah, Sassy that makes a lot of sense. It’s what I’ve been doing almost exclusively for a long time, and that’s why I think it’s time for a change. I feel like I need to get a handle on the past before I can get all there is to be gotten out of the present. I can’t really be present if I’m walking around feeling cut off from who I used to be ‘eh?
That’s a great way to describe it, CC! I think it will be a slow process for me too – that’s moderately annoying but probably to the good
Glad my writing gets your going too. That’s rather cool!