Anger Within
I used to be an angry man
(not true but let’s pretend for the sake of the poem)
and someone asked me
(again, there was no someone)
“Where’d your anger go?”
so I said
(or would’ve said had any of this happened):
“Anger’s not a thing in itself.
It’s something you go through, like childhood,
and just when you’re starting to get into the swing of it,
poof! it’s gone.
Where’d my anger go?
It grew the fuck up,
kicking and screaming but we got there in the end.
Like my inner child anger is still very much a part me,
subsumed, fuming and consumed by thoughts of revenge;
they both are.”
One can only wonder how that someone who wasn’t there
would’ve loved to respond
(probably some rot about the freedom to emote)
but even imaginary inquisitors know when to zip it.
(I mean I made him up so he can be and do what I want.
Same goes for you so none of your lip.)
©2023 Jim Murdoch All rights reserved.
Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.