Home > Work > Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger
21 " In the religious household and schools I was raised in, I was taught that anger was dangerous because of its proximity to hostility, violence, malice, and hate. Anger in and of itself wasn’t wrong, per se, but wrath, a close cousin, was one of the seven deadly sins. It was difficult to coexist with anger. "
― , Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger
22 " The stories that haunt you, the ones that make you freeze, the ones that were so real but feel like ghosts—tell them without shame. The shame is not mine to carry. My body is flesh and guts and dead skin. My body is star stuff and bacteria. My body is mine. My stories are mine to tell and keep. This is my story, in spite of those who tried to take it away. "
23 " I had allowed the weight of my own feelings to crush the eggshells beneath my feet. "
24 " He kept returning to the fact that at least he’d been there; for him the good outweighed the bad and for me the bad was still worthy of his repentance. "
25 " History has drawn women in the shape of weakness. In the shape of melodrama. In the shape of less-than. "
26 " It sounded as though the singer had gathered up all the energy it required to hate oneself and disowned it, flung it outside of her in the form of this beautiful noise. "
27 " I learned that my role as a girl was to try to keep the peace through my work and my silence. I decided his moods were my responsibility; the only possibility for his approval and family happiness was through my service. "
28 " Nobody ever questioned his right to rage. He did not seem to suffer consequences socially. Because of him, I knew that angry men were powerful and dangerous. It was best to avert your eyes and become as invisible as possible when they began to yell, as if by being still one could avoid becoming a target. "
29 " Lately, my anger is a place inside myself that I breathe into to make myself larger, taking up space and making space for others, by refusing to let my boundaries be ignored, "