For a long time,
I didn’t feel much anger toward anyone but myself.
Sadness or indifference became my reflex.
Feeling anything more, like grief, or especially anger
felt like it could cost me everything.

Back then, my apathy wasn’t numbness by accident.
It was my best option for survival.
Feeling the full weight of it all,
the rage of what happened and what was done
would have shattered me.

And turned me into someone that is not me.

So my brain did something brilliant.
It turned the volume way down.
And it worked.
It kept me alive.

Even now, when I know I should be angry,
it still feels too big sometimes.
Like it will swallow me whole.
Or maybe I fear I don’t have the right to feel it.
Maybe I wouldn’t know what to do with it once it’s there.

But lately, I’ve started to let anger in
a little at a time.
And with it has come something unexpected,
more understanding, compassion and love for myself.

It’ll be a long journey,
but one that will help heal me.

Because beneath it lives the part of me
that always knew I deserved better.
The part of me still fighting for myself.