So this is what it feels like to be filled with Rage.

[nickel]

Every muscle in my body quivers. I tense as if atop a sheer cliff, with only the pressure of the wind blowing in my face to prevent me from leaping off, screaming defiance. I smile, and the expression freezes somewhere between the place where I imagine it and the place where it is real. I live outside my skin, as if I could feel each individual hair brush against my clothing, the surface of my desk. I must make my fingers dance over the keyboard, for surely if I released them to their own intentions they would punch through the plastic device, the wooden table and crack the world in twain. My limbs are heavy. They feel like lead weights, and I have confidence they would serve as such if I tore off the shackles of restraint. I am an engine of destruction. This feeling is like a weapon, holding it comes with the desire to use it.

My thoughts spin in a vortex of never-ending loops. Each pass of this vortex presenting me with the target of my rage. And I am calm. Nothing stands between me and my rage, I am not confused. I am not blinded by emotion, but focused, as if every neuron in my mind is pointed at a single thought. Not violence, not hatred, this is a desire to express two things, the ability and willingness to defend my territory.

And I yet I do not act. This is the difference between men and animals.

It is a thinner divide than I expected.