What I Do When Anger Wants the Wheel

Anger shows up in my truck at dusk,
door already open,
boots on the dash,
mud on the floor mat I just washed.

It smells of old arguments and sweat.
It knows the roads better than I do.

It tells me to drive faster,
tells me every light is an insult.

We pass the pawn shop with barred windows.
We pass the church with the empty lot.
We pass the house where I learned
how to turn silence into a weapon.

Anger taps the glass with one finger.
Every face outside becomes a threat.
Every memory turns into a blade.

The past climbs into the back seat.

My hands tighten on the wheel.
The engine swells with heat.
The speedometer rises toward confession.
The road narrows into a dare.

Anger tells me to say the thing
that burns bridges to ash,
to make a clean break
with a dirty mouth.

I pull into a gas station
with one light working.
The clerk doesn’t look up.
The floor carries a thousand nights
of spilled drink.
The freezer hums with buried hunger.

I shut the engine down.

Silence fills the cab with weight.

Anger curses the quiet.

I stay in the seat.
Keys in my fist.
Breath stacking slow in my chest.

The blood cools its fists.

Anger slouches in the passenger seat,
mouth full of smoke,
eyes hunting for an exit.

I don’t throw it out.
I don’t give it the wheel.

I start the truck
when my hands stop shaking.

We leave the lot
at the speed of staying human.




Unarmed

Listen.

Violence don’t start with fists.
It starts with fear.
Fear of losing ground.
Fear of being seen.
Fear that if we stop talking
the truth might speak first.

So fear puts on a clean shirt.
Signs papers.
Prays in the pew.
Calls itself necessary
and sleeps fine.

Faith gets drafted.
Not to heal,
but to steady hands,
to bless force,
to make panic sound holy.

Meekness gets laughed at.
Softness gets you killed.
Certainty grabs the mic
and nobody asks who wired the sound.

That’s the game.

Keep it loud.
Keep it moving.
Keep everybody reacting.
No time to notice
your jaw locked tight.

Because if you stop,
really stop,
the story don’t hold.

The body knows.
Chest tight.
Breath thin.
A man can shout God all day
and still feel fear chewing his ribs.

So I step into the quiet.
Not hiding.
Not holy.
Just a place where nothing works
except the truth.

No weapons here.
No slogans.
No crowd to disappear into.
Just breath.
Just fear.
Just staying put long enough
to see what’s actually driving.

And once you see it,
you don’t get to unsee it.

Violence ain’t strength.
It’s panic with permission.
Faith ain’t certainty.
It’s staying when fear
demands an answer
right now.

So I don’t strike back.
I don’t harden.
I don’t pretend I’m clean.

I refuse to let fear
finish the sentence.

A small mercy survives this way,
quiet,
stubborn,
strong enough to tell the truth
without raising its voice.

This ain’t peace.
This ain’t victory.

This is a man
standing in the noise,
choosing attention over armor,
learning, slow and honest,
how not to become
what he’s afraid of.