Fire and Ice

A rude gesture or insult may cause a reactionary stir of annoyance in me, but it takes something more than that to cause anger- I’m not easily provoked. A misplaced word, a careless thought spoken aloud. Something biased and evil and ultimately wrong. Something perhaps not even intended, but worse still if it is. A verbal assault on the ideas and people that I hold dearest to my heart. This is what it takes to light the match. Anger, in my experience, starts as a slow burn. A fire like a lit fuse which inches ever closer to an inevitable explosion. Sweat begins to build in my clenched palms as a cold chill goes down my spine. My chest begins to tighten as all of my other concerns begin to drop away in the moment, my mind focusing on that which has captured my hatred. The muscles in my arms contract, and my mouth goes dry. I can feel adrenaline begin pumping through my veins, and my breathing comes faster and faster. I yearn, in that moment, to spring into action- to attack. And if I let myself, I can. An idea is a thing which I can yell at, scream at, and argue against, passionately, until there’s no opposition left to me. A person is a thing I can punch, and that’s the simplest option of all. We all fantasize about hitting or raging against the little personal injustices of the world which we all experience every now and then, but most of us will never move beyond that self-indulgent day-dream. And neither do I. I simply focus all of my hatred into a stare which I hold until I feel the last of my emotional bulkheads slam into place, containing the fiery inferno of my fury, leaving behind only frustration.