My white therapist calls it my edge, I hear
Angry Black Women. She says, Strength
of Wilful Negative Focus. She says, Acerbic
Intellectual Temperament. I copy her words
onto an index card. She wants
an origin story, a stranger with his hand
inside me, or worse. I’m without
linear narrative and cannot sate her. We
perform rituals on her living room floor. I burn
letters brimming with resentments, watch
the paper ember in the fireplace, admit
I don’t want to let this go. What if anger,
my armour, is embedded in the marrow of who I am.
Who can I learn to be without it? Wherever you go,
there you are. She asks what i lose
if I surrender, I imagined a gutted fish,
silvery skin gleaming, emptied of itself-

Rage Hezekiah