An open letter to anger

Dear Anger,

Really, I think you're quite funny.

But I do not understand the way you move.

How do you do it?

You wash your ember waves over a face

and suddenly I've never seen it before.

Bulging eyes, puckered lips,

Boiling blood drawn, bitten teeth---

it is an exorcism to rid one of you.

But you are essential? Somehow?

To being human?

If I were able, I would scratch my skin out.

Dig down deep with my chewed-up nails

to rip you out of my very being.

Because I can't do it. I won't.

I won't become a mere vessel for your habititation.

I will not be your mortal to possess.

Because how would I face myself in the mirror? After becoming the thing I so fear?

Angry.

It's all I would see, really.

Some shattered glass draped

in the skin of a wounded animal.

Biting back.