speak up

Shed light on your wrath, and it ends.

Above the Sea of Fog by E. T. Compton (1914)

“If someone is slipping up, kindly correct them and point out what they missed. But if you can’t, blame yourself- or no one.” — Marcus Aurelius

A Poison Tree by William Blake,

“I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night…”

You know how pent up anger behaves. Blake understood it long before any of us had the words. Shed light on your wrath, and it ends. Repress it, and it grows- fed by fear, watered by insecurity, warmed by the little smiles you give to keep the peace. You do this more often than you’d like to admit. You tell yourself it’s nothing. You don’t want friction. You don’t want to disrupt a fragile affection, especially when you’re enamoured and convinced the person you admire couldn’t possibly misstep. So you hold it in…