The chill creeps up like a jealous lover, the rain keeps falling like a dirge. And all around is darkness, clouds traced with the deep dark grey that’s more ominous than black.
I get so few rainy days anymore. The grey-blue that hides inside them as the sun is setting has always been my favorite color. It doesn’t feel like home, it feels like the long road back. It reminds me of hours spent underneath trees, in forests deep and dark enough that a drop would never reach you, just a gentle damp that would slowly spread. Of the feeling of softened leaves and wet dirt beneath my toes. That smell, loamy earth mixing with rain water and the wandering wind.
The feeling of portends and journeys, of the call to adventure and change. Of never going back.
…
The pistol trembles in my hands, but a deep breath steadies me. I know some things, even understand a few of them. But this I feel without thinking. Gently I pull the trigger across the threshold, the dividing line between intent and action. It’s almost ritualistic, this common action, the point of decision and calamity. And then the violence of the act, an eruption of naked force.
They preach about peace and harmony, about getting along, about the beauty of a world in which we could resolve all conflict.
But violence is fun. Distilled to itself alone, it’s just the apotheosis of the will into action. Irresistible force.
When all your anger becomes realized, when you inflict yourself upon the universe.
…
The tragedy is that it’s so easy to hurt people.
Anger, fury, rage. The undeniable opposition, the refusal of acceptance.
It’s not about hurting other people. It’s about who you are, and the struggle to be that person in the midst of opposition. It’s about the will to fight for what you want, to not turn away, to not give up, to not let this one go.
Because some things are worth fighting for. Either you let the fire burn, or you watch it go out.
A ‘good’ man would rather let himself fade gently than choose to hurt other people for the sake of his anger. A ‘good’ man would forgive the world from being different than what he wanted, and suffer nobly so that innocent people would not.
We are told these things, if not in words, then in allegory and metaphor. The good of the many is greater than the good of the one. That serving others is the greatest act one can do. That the meek will inherit the earth.
The light is so dim in the city. So few eyes even twinkle. And of those, too many will flare up too brightly only to be put out. A misspent life lost to denial, broken from self hatred.
No one really hates themselves. We’re all just stars, longing to burn. But we think we should hate ourselves, because they tell us so. And so we put up the act, until one day we forget which person is real and a farce, until we’re acting even when we’re alone, until the light’s screaming to get out and the violence of the need is beyond constraint.
And then the damage is done.
…
I’m not a good person.
Other people’s pain hurts me. I don’t like it when my anger affects them. I don’t like it when other people’s anger affects them. I don’t like it when their own anger can’t be expressed, when they boil away inside themselves afraid to lose their voice.
But I want to set my anger free. I want to burn like the sun and never stop. I want my anger to be righteous, to scream without rebuttal or retort, to carve itself into the very marrow of the world. For my will to be done, because it is just.
In my dream, she’s so angry with me. We scream each other’s sins, we know right where to push to make it hurt. We hold nothing back, forever. There’s no lies about how it’s okay, there’s no ‘I’m sorry’ or false smiles. And it’s perfect, because it’s who we are. Because the indulgence is forgiveness and permission, the exaltation of not the friendly masks we’re supposed to wear, not the conciliatory smile we’re supposed to fake so other people don’t get hurt, but of us, of our truest darkest nature. It’s love, in all it’s bloody glory.
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