Where There's Smoke

Anger is a hot coal you clench in the palm of your hand.

Holding on to anger is like grasping that hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

There have been certain individuals in the past that I have harboured extreme anger for. Over time, it has smouldered and smoked, leaving me choking from the lack of air. As a human being, I need to breathe. Breath is vital to my existence, to my mental and physical survival. Slowly, out of necessity, the smoke that has surrounded me and that I have spent years of my time in has been ushered out of the window and waved through the door. The after-effects are not completely gone, true. There is still a faint scent to the air (has something been charred? I'll have to wait until more smoke clears to find out for sure) and my hands are still covered in the grey-black soot of the fire's remains. It will take a while to get the stains off, I think. The fire has been doused though (and some of it left to die out on its own) and now all that remains is smoke and ash.

The walls are covered in black and I can still smell the smoke on my person, but nothing is flickering anymore. There are no live flames for the first time in what has been nearly a lifetime. The crackle of the fire is silenced, replaced by a whirring wind and the soft drip of last night's rain off the once burning roof.

For once, the anger is gone now. It is no longer relevant.