It starts small. It always starts small.
Harmless.
Benign even.
Like the sting of an unintelligible ant that didn’t know better —- so seemingly inconsequential, you could’ve missed it.
But you didn’t.
Because it keeps count. It always keeps count.
It’s everywhere you dare to look, and everywhere you hope to miss.
It’s in the breeze that blows just a little harder than usual;
In the deviant curl of that one aberrant strand of hair;
In the purgatory of when your body can’t decide whether it feels hot or cold. So, you stick one leg out of the blanket and tuck one inside, and call it a truce.
But it’s also in the impatience of keeping pace with those walking ahead of you; And, in the sheer incompetence of time to pause long enough for you to be punctual. And, in the need to be punctual in the first place
Because only if they knew ….
It’s in the injustice of waking up everyday to the knowledge that you can’t change what you were born into.
So, yes, it is everywhere.
If I hadn’t known better, I may have called it Divine. Or maybe it is?
It is birthed as inconvenience, which grows into irksome, and then graduates to irritation. A drizzle of bespoke helplessness and it transforms into frustration. And, pushed to its limit, in full bloom, it’s rage.
Not ol’ stationary anger. No. Rage is different. Rage is enthused with motion, infused with flavour, transfused with revolution. It is a force of power born of no particular union, and yet somehow present In all particular unions. Nothing, yet everything.
If I hadn’t known better, I may have called it Divine. Or maybe it is?
In the dead of night, the blunt strikes of violence pierced sharply through the deafening silence. As I lay still in bed, struggling to drown out the angry thrumming of my heart, for a split second, I hoped I was dead. The only reminder that I wasn’t, was the rage that thawed my frozen limbs. The only thing worse than hoping you were dead as a ten year old, is thinking you’d be the only one left living.
That night, and every night before and since, for a long time, rage kept me alive, waiting in the shadows. It kept the taste of blood fresh in my mouth, as I bit my tongue to exist forgetfully amidst loud voices, raised hands and lowered boundaries. Rage saved me.
If I hadn’t known better, I may have called it Divine. Or maybe it is?
Rage shows me people in reds and greens, even though I’m colorblindcoloirblind. It teaches me what my boundaries are, even when my impaired vision can’t gauge their sheer fragility. Rage tells me it’s not my fault, even when able bodies instruct me how to treat my disabled one.
As this arsenal of righteous noise gathers deep in the vacancy left by my lost voice, I find in it the lost hope for better, stronger, kinder. I find in it the audacity to expect better of those I love, and those it allows me to hope to love.
Rage is an abode to forgiveness. Forgiving makes you give up the hope for a better past. But rage ensures that that forgiven past doesn’t repeat itself. It shows you a different path —- maybe even a road not taken, and it dares you to rage against the odds.
If I hadn’t known better, I may have called it Divine. Or maybe it is?
So, thank god, I’m atheist. Because at least now I can revel in my rage as something of my own making; as a force I can call upon and let go of without having to churn out empty apologies —- born of righteous anger and perishing only when it feels right.
