Those Who Walk Alone At Night

Chapter Four- The Mad. (Watercolour Red.)

Ty was angry. Ty was always angry. Their words have been spilled since they were a child, too much to be contained by their head and chest, overflowing and leaking out of their mouth and hands in the form of screams and punches.

They throw another dish against the kitchen wall and the sound of it breaking is like poetry for monsters, the explosion of impact doing nothing to the tight coil of spite and rage strangeling their breath, making it heavy and laboured, until the jagged shards of glass land on the tiled floor like knives on their nerves.

The anger, the pulsating inferno, would build and rise then hover at the edge of their flesh like a wave intended on crashing. It turns the blood in their veins to hot, sticky heat that flares inside them. It's red and sudden, the fury is wretched and unpredictable. It's grim and horrendous, and their hands shake with the constant aftershocks of it.

They wrench another dish- a mug, pale blue and chipped slightly on one side- from its place and throw it. But more than that, they tie a little bit of their rage around it and hope the strength of their body is enough to pull it out. It shatters like a firework the same as all the others, and it does not make them feel better. They do it again. And again.

Their mouth feels full of burning candles and hot wax seeps from between their teeth. Their tongue knows nothing but rage and fire and they need someone to tell them how to distinguish between them and the worst thing to ever happen to them. They do it again.

It is what the gods felt before they struck down a city with a plague. The essence of being rabid, everything "too bright," and "too loud," unable to stand up for fear of rage pooling in their bones. At their core they were angered and it is bloody and it is wounded and it is the driving force behind every breath they take. They do it again, and it is the only sound in the night.

The next dish- a plate, off-white and not quite right. Stolen via sleight of hand, though they called it magic- is smashed at their feet, the little shards waxing and weaning and dancing towards them, crawling and hurt, and crunching under their feet. They don't have to forgive to heal, because even when someone who's lost makes them furious, it is still the closest thing to heaven, and it is neither forgiveness nor rage that shatters plates.

No matter how many metaphors they inserted, no matter how many synonyms they screamed in their head- enraged, infuriated, wrathful, fuming, livid- nothing would ever feel as fresh as the words "I am angry" branded across the inside of their skull.

I am angry.

I am angry.

I am angry.

Raging like ocean tides crashing against cliffs, a force that could easily snap necks. The crash of lightning hitting a tree and the scream of thunder afterwards. They don't know whether to swallow the flame and choke on the smoke until the heat burns holes in their throat or to spit it out and watch everything around them burn down.

They don't cry, or scream, they just breathe and break. Breathe and break.

They were running out of glass to throw at the wall.