Rachaita H
Inspired by Shirley Gnome’s Restraint, a song exploring how dark fantasies help her with anger-management.
We aren’t who we think we are
No? Absolutely not!
Not until we perform it. What?
That person within us
Now, I heard Ms. Gnome tell how to optimize all this mental real estate
For times of unrest, such as…well just look around you already—
It’s femme coded though, she instructs how she buries her feminine rage
Hiding a mental graveyard full of the dead with a soft smile upon her face
Beneath the mystery and the manners, she guides us deep inside her mind
‘’Restraint’’, she keeps reminding us, while stacking bodies no one will find
Every time she’s wronged, she pretends ‘’fine’’ and butchers another inside her head
Boy, if you got to counting, I think we could find a whole mountain of the dead
That can’t be healthy now, can it? All that beautiful anger contained
Sure it may keep you out of prison
But restraint will keep you—well, restrained
Now I’m not one for violence either
Or gendered expression, if you will
But I believe anger serves a purpose
So tell me, why would I swallow it down still?
And there’s actual research behind it too, I’m not quoting internet gunk
You make yourself sicker every time you make small what was never meant to be shrunk
Perhaps, an outlet would work better, you know? Than keeping it all in
And honing that killing instinct in silence
Just doesn’t sound like a gamble anyone could win
Believe me, I hear the conditioning
I wish I knew it less well
I’ve been the mascot for performing ‘’calm’’
In rooms where I should have raised hell
Like the generations of angry women before me
Who stifled their rage and called it grace
Except now, I preach a different creed
It’s called ‘’give as much you get’’
The last bitch that lied about me? I let her
And then swept her seat away
She won’t be dining at my table
Not for ever and a day
And that dude from a couple weeks ago?
Who kept honking like he owned the road
While I sped my way down the zebra crossing
Until I stopped, just so he would know
I didn’t mean to…I’m lying, I did–wipe that smug smile right off his face
Would have held his car up right there for an hour too
Some people just need to be put in their place
We’ve policed ourselves for far too long, I say
It’s time to let our feminine rage sing
Gone is the time for ‘’restraint’’
Let’s burn bridges and then burn the ships
Burn every goddamn thing
Because I’m angry
So angry
Angrier perhaps than I have ever been
Still not a murderer
Not yet, nor do I really wish to be
But I’ll perform my rage true to its form
I’ll even make it into a show
So there can be no denying what they see
And no rejecting what they know.
Rachaita H is a failed novelist and serial hobbyist who keeps largely preoccupied with her cats these days. She uses her M.A. in English Literature to work odd jobs across marketing, media production and the like, off and on, to make sure neither she nor the aforementioned cats go hungry. Previously published by the Kindle Magazine, The Drabble, Helter Skelter and The Punch Magazine among other esteemed literary journals, she really ought to revisit her writing desk more often.
Ptenopus 