I’m Not Allowed to Be Angry

I am not allowed to be angry, but you are. You always are. I am the source of your anger, but at the times when I am not, I am the one who receives it. You do not think of the times I remember your screaming, your face turning red, sucking the spit from your teeth so that it may not fly from your mouth, the way you hit everything around you except for people, and leave me to wonder when that will change. I remember it all, because how could I forget. The marks of your anger are scratched onto my brain, even though my skin is clear and free.

I feel anger, but again, it is not an emotion for me to feel. That was your decision. "Stop that," because of a furrowed brow, and "I've had enough of your disrespect!" At a frown. Just a normal frown and brow. Something that every human experiences that is not inherently disrespectful, but again. I am not you. Apparently, I am not allowed to decide what is normal human behavior.

Normal human behavior. Something that has long eluded me ever since I was a child. I have spent days and nights wandering within my mind what that is because where else can I express an emotion such as anger. I stare blankly at a wall. "What if it knows?" A question I can ask no one. Not even out of fear of sounding ridiculous enough to question the listening abilities of inanimate objects, but because I can ask no one but myself about the impossible possibility of the walls expressing my anger for me. The consequences I would live with, my anger always has consequences.

But yours does not. I can speak of your anger because I am not the wall. I can remember. I can remember being told I was an utter disappointment for the way I spoke to my sister after she hurt me.

She received consequences without the insults. Just a simple plea, "Don't say things like that" when she is only reflecting the anger that I cannot. I am not allowed to be a mirror even though I am. If I am to be acknowledged as a mirror, it is one that remembers the old wives' warnings of a soul departed trapped. Or maybe one that heeded their warnings and draped itself in thin cloth so that the spirits may be confused. Any living being would know, however, that a mirror still resided under that cloth. Anger cannot be hidden by my practiced blank expression.

That is the issue after all your demands. I am left with no true resolution once again. The anger cannot go away. I am constantly angry. My anger is as consistent as the brown in my hair or the hazel in my eyes. I am filled with what I have received from you. What am I supposed to do about it? How is one meant to exist with no outlet? Everything is trapped behind the blank slate that you hate.

Even to hide one's anger is against the rules. Because then I am heartless. I am cold. I am refusing. When I have been ignored. I follow the rules and I am wrong. I break them and I am wrong.

My anger resides. It waits. Its prey is near. The only acceptable prey can be hidden away. A villain in a video game, who has done countless wrongdoings, hurting thousands-no millions with their cruelty. Aggression is permitted because it is fictionally righteous fury.

Righteous fury expressed in reality is wrong because it is unfounded. I do not know enough to truly understand when righteous fury is permitted. But you do. You always do, my rulemaker. Whenever your idols have been wrong or your values questioned, your anger is warranted. You would fight the world if it told you your anger was wrong. I cannot fight you.

"What if someone knows?" I ask my keyboard. For once writer's block is my enemy. My challenge. My fight. My anger is contained within words that you now read. The you in question is no longer aimed toward the rule-makers. The rule-makers will never read this. Well, one would hope.

But if they did, they would learn that my anger lurks. It eats away at me every single day. My soul losing itself to the mirror where I see more than a furrowed brow or a frown.

I see white-knuckled fists with no target.

I see gritted teeth that threaten to break under my might.

I see the tears through the red.

I suffocate under my own wrath.

I punch the soundless pillow.

I imagine a recipient.

I submerge myself, only the water hears me scream.

What else am I supposed to do? I am not allowed to feel angry. That is an emotion reserved for everyone aside from me. The rule-makers do not know about the pillow or the water. They will never see my fists or my teeth for all the times they have seen my tears have been enough, "Stop fucking crying. Get the fuck over it." They reprimand. Always swearing. I am permitted to curse, but only in matters of pain and joy. Never anger, which should be obvious at this point. It's always so fucking obvious.

So fucking obvious that I don't want to live with this shit. I am tired of using delicate pretty words to make my anger seem lesser. It's not lesser. I need that to be known. I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of these shit-fucking rules that I don't understand. Why am I not allowed to be angry? Give me a fucking answer.

Anger is not meant to be quiet. It's either reckless or calculated. It's reckless when you force crappy rules down someone's throat with the vain, idiotic hope of forcing them into submission. It's calculated when the rules are forced upon you, but you won't submit. A part of me yearns to be reckless, but I couldn't hurt someone like that. I couldn't destroy someone like that. The rule-makers programmed me to care in ways they did not.

I don't know if there is an end to my story, my anger. My choice to be calculated, rather than reckless, is the only ending I can imagine. Maybe it is the only one I am allowed until a sequel permits me to ask, "Why am I not allowed to be angry?"