Anger In Red

Tearing skin and shattering bone,
The blunted edge slashed deeply,
Smearing its blood-red stain inside the cavities of my soul.
It was not the wound of a friend,
Nor the careful incision of the Restorer’s healing instrument.
Its bluish-gray, carboned steeliness,
Wielded by some long ago face and name whose metallic-tasting anger time has
Blurred into all faces and names, fomented my bitter war.
Savaged and misshapen, I screamed, then demanded, and finally begged
That it be removed. I don’t deny that they tried.
But it stayed, slowly becoming a part of me.

After a while, I hissed and dared for someone to take my anger from me.
Swinging murderously, I wielded my own axe, determined to reciprocate the original pain.
Its blood-red handle slippery in my calloused hands, I gripped harder still,
Volcanic eruptions of rage spewed from my perpetually inflamed wound
On everyone, seen or not, known or stranger.
Striving to even the score in a futile mismatch,
I would make heaven, hell and the world pay every hellish day.
Temples pounded in blacked-out white heat, cold eyes burned in consuming fire.
Show no mercy, take no prisoners.
Each scant, Pyrrhic victory forewarned me that
Discharged anger only cauterizes and callouses the heart,
Ripping apart old wounds.

The Restorer’s scalpel dared inflict another wound.
I whirled furiously, blindly, intending to fend off the intrusion and stop the pain.
I sensed the difference; it was the careful wound of a Friend.
The blood-red handle did not slip in his death grip.
Alive and forceful, the honed blade left me flayed on the rock, daring to touch the original pain.
Joints separated from marrow, soul from spirit, the governances of my mind unraveled.
Pinned beneath his riveting stare, I thought blackness, creeping up the edges of my consciousness,
Would suffocate me. It was the final battle of the war. Then I understood that the metallic
Blackness, the stained-red vestiges of anger had been gently taken from me;
Someone Else’s blood, spilling from a perpetually fresh wound, washed away the bluish-gray.
I am astonished that a rugged piece of wood can cut so cleanly.

Comments

[Jenny Teets]

That was so powerful! The title caught me by the throat, and held me to the last gory line!
Keep up the good work! (writing)

[J. Mark Jordan]

Dear Lord Jesus! You have perfectly described the very situation I found myself in when I first came to Jesus. Reading this reminded me of just how far Jesus has brouhgt me. I may not be there yet but, I am not there anymore either. Thank God!

Angela Roth