I read something today and it said,
"The unbothered anger that I have to swallow
to be soft
would bury you."
And it stopped me in my tracks.
I've never quite related my anger to words like that
because no one talks about the restraint it takes
to be soft.
The violence it took for me to be this gentle,
I was not born knowing how to kiss,
only how to bite.
But it's easy to forget
when I only ever show my teeth mid-laugh,
for I was passed down anger
like a family heirloom.
I was taught how to bare my teeth.
Tenderness was not native to me.
I chose to learn it.
The gentleness that falls from my tongue today
is not my first thought.
Sometimes it's not even my second
or my third.
It is a practice.
It is conscious effort,
and it is not always easy.
Not many people in my life today
know the anger that is buried beneath my kindness.
How many times I have stood
at the very edge of becoming
the very thing that wounded me
and decided to step away.
People speak about gentleness
as though it is the absence of violence,
but sometimes it is the very definition of it.
Do not mistake my gentleness for weakness,
for it is not the opposite of it.
It is not the absence of war.
It is what I chose to become
after surviving it.
If you believe that my kindness comes
from a lack of suffering,
then pray that you never have to hold
what I carry so quietly,
for I learned how to kiss
from a mouth that only ever knew how to bite.
