stuffing down the real emotions, the real feelings
because if we expressed them we would be punished
anger-sadness-distress-frustration
all now tainted with fear of being reprimanded
little people not taught how to deal with big emotions
punished for not always being agreeable.
How can an emotion be inherently evil?
When the little children came to Jesus, I wonder if he insisted they could only have happy hearts
like my sunday school teacher with the sad eyes and tight smile told me?
I fumble, like a child,
trying to find the words for a rage
stuffed down for years,
terrified it will destroy me
terrified expressing it will result in only loss
but
it needs to rise out of me
inside me it has destroyed me
and it comes out sideways
in unpredictable ways
so I lose anyway.
I want to get inside it now
Feel it around me
Understand it
Follow it through
to its roots
and honor it for being the correct
the sacred
response
to injustice.
I want to inhabit it
as a feminine being
and claim the power
and agency that was denied me
by having my natural responses
pummeled into submission.
Rage is better left said
And the work of my adulthood
is finding the healthy, healing ways
to do so
dancing with the flames
instead of being consumed by them.
