Angry

I am angry.

Not the kind of angry that passes. Not the kind you sleep off. The kind that sits in the chest and doesn't move.

Angry at God, at the universe... for taking my son too soon. Twenty two years I had with him. I was supposed to have more. I was owed more. Nobody asked permission before they took that away.

Angry that I've been robbed of my future. Not a future. My future. The one I was already living in, in my head, before it happened. Robbed of my grandchildren reaching for my hand. Robbed of watching him become a father the way I was his. That future was real to me. It had a shape. Now it has nothing.

Angry that tomorrow, twenty two years in the building, stopped existing in an instant. One instant. That's all it takes to undo two decades.

Angry that the road was wet.

Angry that the lighting on that winding country road was nonexistent. Angry that out of every tree on that road, his truck found the largest one. Angry that he left the house when he did instead of a few hours later. A few hours. That's the distance between my son alive and my son gone. A few hours.

None of it makes sense. I know that. I've turned it over enough times to know there's no shape to it, no reason hiding underneath if I just look hard enough. It was wet, it was dark, it was a tree, it was a time. That's all it was. And I'm still angry at every piece of it anyway, because anger doesn't need the world to make sense. It just needs somewhere to go.

And underneath all of it, the angriest part... I can't find a reason to move forward. The life I built no longer exists, and I don't have the energy or the ability to build another one. Not sad. Devastated. Exhausted, in a way that sleep doesn't touch. Too devastated, too exhausted, to do anything about any of it. I'm angry at that too. Angry that I'm the one left holding a life that doesn't fit anymore, with no energy left to do a single thing about it, no idea what to do with my hands.

I don't have anywhere to put this anger. There's no one to hand it to. The universe doesn't take a phone call. The road won't apologize. The tree is still standing.

So I write it down instead. Not because it helps. I don't know yet if it helps. But it's here, and it's true, and today, that's as much as I can do with it.