Not content to lavish more abstention on the obdurate slab of stubborn

There ended up being a few surviving words that I might utter and then grab out of the air before they land on their target. At times I will feign the act of bringing them back to my mouth, as though they could be planted back into the fertile soil of black-hearted resentment. But more often I cup them in my hands and look for the right time and place to lay them on the listener, as a capstone at the business end of an argument that I’ve waged with rage enough for both parties. Timing is everything, and it’s not worth sharing a word unless you can be confident it might be the last one.

Some say it’s natural to be vigilant in cultivating the slights and wrongs that make it possible to keep enduring long after self-discipline wants to lie down, let things be, and declare a halt to the dispute. Vehemence is venom, not poison, and counting coup on the words that can’t be held onto, much less taken back, is just one way in which winning this fight at this moment is a surefire, can’t-lose, fully warranted means of never having to be heard from or seen again. You’d like that of course and I would too. #winning. But even here, at the stage when a post-mortem might be graciously given, I am standing in a half crouch, shadow-boxing with the splintered monologues that voices both parts of an exchange, not asking the questions after having seized on the answers fully-formed. Comes up empty-handed, fork-tongued, a blasphemous sermon to oneself.