Anger. 
n. 

1) Outletless because where does the screaming hurling abuse go, where do I throw every small object within my grasp to like a raging wife in a serial drama, who am I supposed to anger towards? If I split myself into two to indulge in a screeching tantrum-fest, perhaps this ennui-heavy anger will finally leave me. She is dripping with anger and she wants to accuse, “You ruin everything!”

2) Impatience. A switch has been flipped and instead of the dial pointing at “kindness”, it now points at “impatience” because when are you going to get your act together, when are you going to be less sensitive, when are you going to become normal?

3) Apathy because a) I am sick and tired of you the way an exhausted mother has had enough of her baby’s ever constant tearing wails and howls and demands for more when all she wishes for is a little magic sliver of peace, b) what does it even matter if I am angry at you, what is even the point anymore, why should I care when all I want is for you to –

4) Suffer and I want to kick you when you are down and I do not think you deserve any help because someone who cannot help themselves deserves only to suffer and vindictive, vicious pleasure satiates me like blood filling a wound with every suffering I act out on you. I just want to see how long you will wallow and suffer like a pig in mud.

5) Blame. Do you know how it feels to have a judge, jury and executioner scrutinize and measure and pore over your every action, word and feeling, eager to pounce upon the tiniest of cracks, condemnation and finality ringing, resounding as a bell, to declare that you are: not enough. You have been judged and found wanting but why must you be perfect when you are fearfully and wonderfully made? But why must you blame me when it –

6) Hurts so much because I am never enough, nothing I do ever fills the gaping chasm between me and every other person, and every day, the abyss of not-enough widens, and every day, I think, I cannot do it. Why do you blame and blame and blame me and place condemnation like a crown of thorns on my head. I am trying! I am doing my best, why is that not enough, when will that be enough? Is it not heartbreaking enough that I cannot even see every hill that I conquered because you only push me further and force me to more?

7) Grief. Perhaps this grief is noise-to-your-ears and not tears-in-your-throat. I am trying to listen to you even as you only lash me with a whip. I am trying to understand you even as you bend me further and further out of shape until my internal organs are compressed into nothing. I carve space from my own heart to build you an audience chamber because I do not want to miss a word that you are saying — help me, what are the words swallowed by the sound of the fire?

7.1) Self-protection. Perhaps they are:

a) I am angry at you because I am tired of the cold chill of powerlessness and anger is warming.

b) I am angry at you because I am sick of the ten-tonne chain-weights of misery tied to each ankle, leaving me gasping desperately for breath.

c) I am angry at you because I do not trust you anymore. You are a ship with a faulty rudder and a wavering compass. You are a failing North Star. Months were spent clinging to breath and life in the storm-ridden sea and your promise-certainty echoes emptily — there is nary a glimpse of land. You are a stumbling captain who has led me into the sea of failure again and again and I do not trust you anymore.

d) I am angry at you because I am standing in a fog, confused and lost and I am so unmoored I stand and stare at nothing for a long, long, long time trying to regain my bearings and dredge up another eking of grit to try and try again and this hazy helplessness frightens me and this soul-deep exhaustion numbs me. I stand in a fog-shrouded land and every thought is a buried landmine underneath my feet waiting to happen into explosion. I stand in a fog-shrouded land and there is no end in sight and I walk and walk and walk to see the same featureless haze and I live in this fog and pain and fear for so long that I pray it has not seeped into me and stained my insides indelibly. I stand in a fog-shrouded land and I lend all my concentration to listening to you and I hear your frantic voice correcting and measuring and evaluating me and I understand –

8) Compassion.

a) You are an impulse to heaven and you are forcing twisted shape after shape after shape upon me because you – I – we – are scared and you will not go into the stormy night resigned. You – I – we – fear every apocalyptic glance and world-ending word and death-bringing tone and you believe that this fear can be outrun if we only twist ourselves enough. You – I – we – fear every soul-grinding terror and soul-reducing humiliation and you believe we will never feel like that again if only I am more. So, then, –

b) Rest, dear one. I will walk now with my heart exposed, bravely, nakedly, and let every event write and tattoo and scar itself onto my beating and raw heart. You need not curve ribcage-talons around it anymore. I will now feed my body and mind and soul with breath and I will be a being of air and diffuse every wound and you do not need to frantic over it anymore. I will now enfold myself and you with acceptance and I say now, it is okay, maybe I will always be like this and maybe it will have to be okay. Rest assuredly and calmly because you have toiled above and beyond and I am on a Pilgrim’s journey – I make slow and winding and invisible progress, but I have walked far and left behind my home and this counts for something, surely. Because the most important thing – the sounds lost in the fire – the words I have been searching and searching to say to you are –

c) Trust me. And I will trust you.