By Hanna Swindell
War(mth), you have pet my anger into something subdued.
The fury calms with every word, folded into silence by the gentle tone in your voice. (FOOLISH). Confusion is a close friend. Not close enough to know, just enough to feel. It is this embrace, acquiescence is the succor we need. There is constant movement bred by Something, but once soothed, we never figure out what Something is.
Is it better to be comfortable and unsure?
“Does it matter?” they often ask, with a look in their eyes, saying we are odd for wondering about if it does.
I don’t know, we reflect, should it?
It’s more comfortable to not care, so the ultimate decision is to stay in that vacant space of relaxation.
“It is safe here.”
What cruelty, we notice.
Choose to ignore it, we decide.
We crave warmth, it melts all solid opinions. The empty brain, filled with nothing but others’ unworried, unconcerned words. The lack of pressure to do something, the lack of worry, is better than the incessant screams of uncertainty.
Is it wrong to want to be safe?
Not necessarily, right?
Then how do we live?
The semblance of fear is criminal, so you command it gone:
“Lose yourself in it, the beauty of bliss.
Another world, another place of sanctity to escape into.
Know that the safety of not knowing is less secure than the barrier of ignorance.”
What cruelty, we notice.
But we cannot decide.
There is such sanctity in the uncared for.
It is just shaking hands of fate and thanking them for making you safe.
But they lost…
It stirs, Something is writhing beneath the surface of the water, not quite breaking it –– trapped beneath, a serpent rioting –– even though it wants to. You attempt to soothe it, but it cannot be smothered any longer. Chase it into the distance, into the dark, and grab the fresh air.
Willing innocence is ignorance!
Choking on our own vomit,
We fall.
Grasping for the edge of security we just lost.
Spiraling down the cliff of this so-called protection.
All is a lie you breathe down our necks,
Hoping we obey sweetly.
But we are shaking and rioting,
Agony is leaving our mouths as we land,
As we see.
We scream so someone will understand what you never will.
“How do you scare anger?”
“Make it criminal to feel it.”
We are not motivated by sadness or rage, but by exhaustion––Aren’t they the same?
Then why is it so quiet?
Our hatred is hiding from us, under the blanket of humiliation you draped over our shoulders. It is afraid to show because of what you do to those who show it. Like a trapped animal, it fights, but once let out, it often slips into the corner.
Anger is caged fear.
“What good is anger to solve this?” you taunt.
Not much, but inciting fear is the only way to fight the powerful, like you.
You took what built us feel and turned it against us. You made feeling into something vile. Are we wrong for passion? Why is it right to be calm, and wrong to be angry? What have you done to us? This dissolution; the deception of a liar’s peace!
Are we fools or simply foolish? Is the fooler at fault for the deception of war(mth), or is it us for falling for their dictations?
Blunt and bloody, we break down the fortress of falsity.
The security you’ve forced us to swallow,
We spit it out.
FOOLISH.
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