My Anger Is Too Well-Behaved

Dear Delyara, If I shouted, maybe I would understand it faster. If I broke something, maybe someone would call it serious. But my anger has manners. It becomes efficiency, sarcasm, a sharp tone, a headache, a shutdown, a need for silence, a body that cannot tolerate one more human voice by 8 p.m. That kind of anger is hard to defend. It doesn’t look dramatic enough. And because it doesn’t, it keeps living in the body where it does its work quietly. I know I am angry. I also know I have spent years making anger acceptable before I let myself feel it properly. That habit is poisoning me in polite ways.