Rage-Colored Glasses

When people smile and say that I’m kind,

I want to say they’re straight out of their mind.

I feel so unworthy, with my boiling blood,

And the anger that runs through my veins like a flood.

It’s always there, it lurks like a beast,

Waiting to spring, and to slaughter, and feast

This anger, this monster, an ancestral curse,

I shove down and wonder if it will get worse.

I smile with my teeth clenched, tight over my tongue,

Hold back words that burn with oily smoke inside my lungs.

Now my bones are shaking with the things I leave unsaid,

I want to scream out every thought I lock inside my head.

I clench my fists the tighter, to keep myself from swinging,

All the while my anger thrashes, and in my ears is singing.

So don’t tell me that I’m gentle, it’s all a grand facade,

You don’t see me in all the ways I know that I am flawed.

So if you think I’m friendly, it’s a mask I have unfurled.

I shudder as I swallow every snarling thought that passes.

You’d never guess I watch the world,

Through warped, rage-colored glasses.