My rage is quiet, it seemed to have slipped out of bed hours before me and circled the house before I awoke. I found my rage sitting silently in the bathroom, seeping into the broken tiles, lurking behind the peeling wallpaper. I thought I saw my rage hiding in the bare cupboards, in the maggots in the rice, the eyes on the potatoes that grow completely unswayed by their lack of earth. I go to turn on the stove but my rage snuffs the flame. Not today. Today you don’t get comfort. Today I win, today I control you. I grabbed my things and ran out the door chasing him, cursing every red light and slow car along the way. I thought I saw my rage hiding in the boarded up buildings near the freeway where huge corporations pulled out and decided that even exploiting my neighbors with their garbage product made from slave labor came at too high a cost to deal with the reality of what trickles down from the muddy banks of Potomac all the way to the East Bay. I looked for my rage in the faces of my fellow commuters, but they were too busy finding theirs to be bothered by my hunt for mine. I thought; maybe today I catch this rage, I silence it before it alienates my friends, colleagues and peers. Today might be that day. I know I saw my rage hiding in the twitching fluorescent lamps above my head turning on slowly over me and following my down the aisles and rows of grey boxes that fill this place. I thought I saw my rage in my neighbors cell, tearing pictures from the wall in a slurry of tears and anguish, but that was not my rage, this belongs to another. I find my rage as I take my seat, but by now it’s hiding, just out of reach, in the fuzzy fields at the periphery of my vision, forever just out of sight. But it’s there, this I know, this I can feel with electric certainly from the sick fog overwhelming me as I find out how much further this land has gone from the country that I believed in. My rage sits quietly in the distance, folding its wings, waiting. But then it happens.
Something, someone, some idea has been intercepted; my thoughts purloined and stomped over by my rage. This is it. This is the now, this is my world. My cause, my war. My rage gains a foothold over me and I feel its warm familiar breath on my neck, it comes across like a gentle breeze or a lover’s breath on my ear letting me know that it’s here. It’s always been here, right around the corner. I breathe in and feel my rage come over me. I can feel its electricity in my fingers, its words in my throat, its power in my fists. It has found a cause, it’s found a victim, and I can feel my rage coursing, throbbing through my brain. My ears ring, I can feel its electricity surrounding me, I am immured by its power, and everything inside me tightens, tenses, and prepares for battle. My rage wraps over me like a dirty blanket on the floor that you’ve lived with long enough to ignore the filth and holes. I cloak myself in it, I become it. I feel the rage when my throat tightens, my breath races; I am survival. I am empowered, I am helpless, and the rage has taken its seat at the captain’s chair and is learning to steer. This is my superpower, this is my last resort. The rage pours forth from my mouth and fingers, it cries proudly and wildly announcing its presence. It is here, I have become it.
I thrash wildly as my mind races. Suddenly, a plan emerges, a target is picked, and my rage has a new purpose. With the throbbing impetus of a mind on the verge of total collapse I work feverishly, furiously, unyielding. And then suddenly I feel a retreat. Has my rage been wounded? I fear for it. The rage has been a lot of things and shown up in a lot of places I’d have never expected to find it. My rage is such a master of disguise that it is impossible to tell. It has hidden in my suitcase on vacation, it sneaks under closed doors, oozes through the telephone, and is burst forth into a thousand bits in the sky as it finds a new purpose. I am sick, tired, exhausted. I dry heave and my eyes water, the final passing of the rage is just as painful as the initial takeover. I try to shake it from my head, I try to refocus, to ground and re-center, and for a minute it seems like it’s worked. I can see my rage has found friends, and with those friends has spawned children and formed communities, hierarchy, debating Sartre and reciting poetry. Those fools, they know not from what mud they were formed. I retreat back to my corner silently. With the rage passed I feel empty again, purposeless, like a lost ship listing on a dark sea. The isolation of wrestling with my rage has left me with few people to turn to. It’s now just me, my rage, and the world. It has left me now nearly completely and I feel the gravity of the void it left behind. Holding something so toxic, radioactive, caustic inside leaves precious little space for anything else. Now, in the distance, in the afterglow I wonder where it’s gone. We parted ways like two old prize fighters, hardened by a lifetime of fighting the same unending episodic battles for eternity. Sometimes I win, sometime I lose, and sometimes we both lose. The strangest thing is the emptiness when the rage has left. What do I fill this with? I wonder which of us will hang up the gloves first and allow the other to be the final victor. Alone in the darkness, under the inhuman glow of sodium lights another strange feeling seeps in its place. Longing. Confusion. With the rage there’s a purpose, with the rage there are enemies and obstacles, and in its absence there are only shades of grey. I am a unwilling veteran of an unending war, drafted far too young, finding this strange ennui when left alone; deep inside me something yearns for the battle. It’s what I do best.
