the thing is

the thing about anger is that it fades. eventually. (most of the time). you can carry around your balled up fists & your furrowed brows, but at some point, you have to put it down. you can use it to break windows & systems & the hearts of those who want the best for you. you can use it to power the entire london tube if you want. start a war. end it. break the metal rods on the human cages. free the lab animals. burn the supreme court. but when it’s all over, the anger turns over, turns to vapor, & joins the water cycle just like our piss & tears & sweat. & comes back to us again in raindrops, in holy water, in bottles filled with micro-plastics. anger is a cycle too. it’ll sauté your organs if you sit in one place with it for too long. sometimes i wish i knew how to aim my anger like a crossbow & hit the bullseye each time. but mostly i’m just drunkenly throwing darts & not even grazing the board at all. there are always casualties. anger can liberate, it can trap. but anger always moves, in one way or another. the thing about grief is that it stays. always. (all the time). you can move a thousand miles away & take up pickle ball & drink a handle of vodka every night. but one day you’re on a bus that’s just a little too quiet & your headphones are dead & the images rush past the window a little too calmly & there’s that gnawing feeling again, seeping in the stillness. right in the spot that used to be filled. grief can be tender, angelic, sickeningly sweet. perverse & rotten. it can drive you to destruction, creation, purpose. it can grow & shrink & simmer. but it always stays. sticking to your ribs like molasses & duck fat. grief is anaphylaxis. autoerotic asphyxiation. grief can be surrender, a shrine, a sacrifice. but it stays. casseroles & sweet potato pie. biographies & elegies & hymns on the wind. it is love. it is elusive & comes in suddenly, but never fleeting. it is metamorphosis. a shower drain. pruny hands & cookie tins full of sewing supplies. grief is luggage, being tagged it, skydives with no parachutes. it can mold from the clay, drive a forklift, dismantle a rodeo clown. it shows up in many ways but always, it stays, it stays, it stays.