How many of my emotions are like neighbors?
I know I have them, I just don’t know their names. I don’t know what they do, or where they come from.
I wouldn’t recognize them on the street, or maybe, I would. In that lingering glance that reddens the face.
We both know we must know each other. But just move along.

Would I charge myself? Like a gorilla seeing a mirror. My red eyes not comprehending myself. So used to, aggression or defense, when it comes to really seeing myself. Am I a young German boy with a rifle, charging a young English boy with a rifle? Leaving wounds on myself, by leaving wounds on myself.

How many people live in my head? All 12,000 mate pairs in my ancestry from now to about the first time a homo-sapiens walked and throw rocks and fucked something that probably smelt like fire smoke more than bodily funk. I hope. If I never met my father, would I still be as angry as him? Through the twisting of my genetics, and despite lifestyle differences, more or less the same vessel subject to the same bullshit. Have we been fighting the same wars since way back when?

Are my struggles so different from a dogs. From a boy sex slave in an African country I don’t really know of and kind of only assume exists and mines cobalt for smart phones. Does he get angry at inanimate objects as much as I do? People I can forgive. But when the pea falls from my fork a second time, how can I be anything but face-hot angry. This one fucking thing I should be able to control, command, depend on, slips off and lands in the mashed potatoes. Fucking ruined both of them now.

How many of my thoughts are even mine? None? All of them? The state’s? Of the state’s concern? How angry do I need to be inside before I get prematurely arrested. Arrest all poor people, they’re more likely to steal TVs. Despite most financial crime being of amounts orders of magnitude greater in cost than TV. You can take from everybody in the form of taxes and bailouts. Just don’t take from me alone. Or best buy. I like best buy.

Is society just an accumulation of childhood sexual trauma so that any man resembling a drunk uncle causes an irrational threat response? Will I eventually see that in my husband and realize my love for him was actually a coping mechanism. His fault for hiding his true nature as a man. My fault for being a woman. We should change the DOD to the Department of War. We should revoke Roe v. Wade. We should let ICE take away our neighbors.

I know the immigrant family neighbor just as much as the old white lady. As in, not at all. But for some reason I forgive her when she parks in my spot. But not when those illegals have a family cook out. All smiles and hugs. They shouldn’t be killed, just taken away. I’m a humanitarian after all. I recognize myself when I see it.

Don’t I?