Michelle Dombrowski

Anger seeps into every part of life, and peace seems more and more like a distant idea.

I’m attached to my anger like a parasite is attached to its host.

I am angry at those who have harmed me.

My body and mind replay the moments that consume me, moments that I wish to erase from my memory entirely. I want to preach about how actions that have happened are incomprehensibly incorrect and shouldn’t be tolerated.

I cannot push past this feeling.

It grows from my stomach to my throat, capturing me in a web of disgust. My gut twists and turns, and my eyes swell with tears each time these feelings pervade my thoughts. I feel as though I’m in a forever cycle of remembrance and frustration. No matter how many times I go over the situations, it all comes back, heating my body into flames and leaving me in a forever state of unacceptance. 

At random times in the day, it’ll rush back to me. I’ll see or hear something so little, so insignificant, and yet it triggers a wave of mental distress and hurt. It’s the tiny reminders of what I could’ve had and what I’ve had to come to terms with having. I am forced to live with myself, stuck inside my own brain. It’s my own, self-created exile.

I tell myself I am freed of those I have left in the past, but the memories still claw at my mind. I wonder if peace is a realistic option anymore.

I am angry at my creator, for supposedly whoever they are has set this plan out for me. I will never understand how someone so glorified could’ve ever chosen this for my path. I am faced with senseless words that I was picked for this.

Does that mean everything I’ve gone through was deserved? 

And how can you tell me that’s what someone so beautiful has done?

I am angry at my country.

I am angry at the ignorance of the people who live in my country. I am angry at the people who continue to remain neutral under such crucial circumstances. I am angry that the youth from the location I live in have to be taught that the adults we’re supposed to look up to are wrong. I am angry at my peers who fail to see that they are.

My future is now a question. I do not get to dream the dreams that my parents had. I’ve been torn away from that luxury, as now knowing if I will survive or not in the next four years is my biggest concern. I am angry that the people in power get to try and decide that for me.

My heart breaks for the very people who live under the injustices that they’ve had to come to terms with. The families torn apart, the terror that reigns over the states nearby. The news screens are bombarded with tragedy after tragedy, and I cannot understand how people can still defend the person who’s behind all of it.

I am filled with a feeling that is so much more than just anger; it’s fear, it’s sadness, it’s dying hope. 

It’s wondering if there can still be a better tomorrow.