In a drug-fuelled rage last night, I turned completely inward to the worst alleys and corners of my heart. Infested with nothing but hatred, I took some wrong turns and all of a sudden, all I could see was red. There is little I remember, but I do remember an out-of-body experience where the side of me that is furious at the world came out and took its place in the centre stage. In everything I said, I remember repeating, “I am angry. I do not know who I’m angry with.” But some things were said in the hour or two of my soliloquy as my friends sat around me and I walked around the apartment in the utmost frenzy of paranoid rage. They were true, of course, but we do not say some things. I could feign the blame and say I did not mean them, but the truth is I did. One by one, all of my friends tried to calm me down. One by one, they all failed until I got exhausted and slept. In the morning, I did not say a word, embarrassed not at what had happened but at the fact I had things in my head, thoughts they would not have expected me to. But we do not control what we think of, and anger is normal. I am only grateful that the four people across from me are still sitting here. One is playing with a football, knocking it around, waiting for the other three to get ready. We are about to head to the casino, where the drinks will be unlimited, and the luck, I hope, may be on our side. Not to make us millionaires, no, those things are reserved for the films, but enough that the fun remains.
That is all it is, mostly. It is a gamble to have people in your lives, and as angry as I have been at things, many things—a list long enough for me to never be able to put it all down without some aid from a tablet—I think I have still picked the right cards, or at least, not as bad a hand as one might hope. I claim to be many things, but after last night, I think that is all it is: a claim. I am no longer sure I am a good person. For all the things that live in my head, for all my anger, I am anything but that. I am, however, trying to do better. I hope that counts for something. What else is there?