Is it anger? Not really.

It’s more like a volcano ready to erupt in my chest – the lava barely contained, spilling over, driven upward with enough energy to burn a hole through everything.

Pain?

That word doesn’t scratch the surface of the layers upon layers of ash falling like dark rain upon the grounds that once rang with the songs of free speech and glittered with a thousand art murals now kept only in memory.

250 years of freedom.

Not quite, but close. The confetti hasn’t even been thrown and we are faced with the fragility of this shared hope, this hard won dream we were set to celebrate.

Will these words relieve the anguish? At least for tonight? Tonight, as the smoldering ruins of another amendment are still hot.

It’s too early to tell.

But it’s too early to tell many things.

Like how far our once-respected institutions will bend. For fear, it turns out, is a powerful motivator.

Or how long until the sand completely erodes and all those buried heads must look. Because denial, it turns out, is a fickle friend.

Or whether there will still be time once they do. Because time, as we all know, marches on without a care.

Forgiveness and compassion? My lifeline and guide – at present nowhere to be found.

Perhaps they will return in the morning after a cup of black coffee and the understanding that life must go on.

My heart must go on.

Forgiveness?

Yes, tomorrow.

Tomorrow I must rise to another day. Tomorrow I will forgive. I will love. I will look to the sun. I will pray for rain.

But tonight? Tonight I am fire.

©️2025 Cristen Writes