the upside of anger.

a woman had a husband.
he disappeared. took only his wallet.
she thinks he left her for his secretary.
she has a neighbor. a single, lone, happily bitter man. her age.
he wants to drink with her.
not have a drink, not buy her a drink. just... drink.
she lets him in.
they drink together... and drink together. they become friends.
they think.
she's bitter. she's angry. he lets her be.
she hates him, she asks him to drop dead, and then stay for dinner.
he stays.
he doesn't like going home. it's empty there and he likes the way her house smells.
one night, they retire. to the same room. her room.
the one her husband left her in.
and they sleep. she on one edge. he on the other. never touching, never trying.
just sleeping.
separately together. just how she likes it. just how he lets it be.
one year.
one year passes. the same way every night.
then there is a knock at the door.
the police have found her husband.
his bones rather, he'd fallen in a well.
not ten yards from her door. he died in that well.
she feels... vacated.
she can't believe what she has been told.
she walks into the kitchen, and gets the vodka down.
she leaves it sitting on the counter and she walks upstairs.
she gets into her edge of the bed. and she stares.
suddenly, she moves. backward.
further. further still.
she has silently joined him.
on his edge.
he puts his arm around her.
she pulls it tighter.
and she cries.

a case in point of anger's ability to change us is her mother. her mother was always the sweetest woman i ever knew. she was the sweetest, most honest woman anyone that knew her ever knew. then things changed. then she changed. she got angry. good and angry. anger has turned her mother into a sad and bitter woman. if she wasn't her mother, she'd punch her. she would. she'd look her straight in the face and tell her what she really think of her...

and then run really fast in the opposite direction.

the human race doesn't know how to love. they bite, rather than kiss. slap... rather than stroke.
maybe it's because we realize how easy it is for love to go bad. to become suddenly impossible.
unworkable. an exercise in futility. so we avoid it, and seek solace in angst. and fear. and aggression. which are always there and readily available. or maybe, sometimes, we just don't have all the facts.

anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. that's what i know now. it needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. it's real though. the fury. even when it isn't. it can change you. turn you. mold you and shape you into someone you're not. the only upside of anger then, is the person you become. hopefully, someone that wakes up one day and realizes that they're not afraid of the journey. someone that knows the truth, at best, is a partially told story. that anger, like growth, comes in spurts, and fits. and in it's wake, it leaves a new chance at acceptance.

and the promise of calm.