I don't necessarily feel it in my waking life, but my dreams are colored with it.

The anger.
The anger and fear and corresponding frustration and sadness, is in there, somewhere.

Understand, I went a long time without the anger. Or so it seems. More accurate to say I hid it well, or, even more to the point, I taught it to hide itself. I taught it to hide itself so completely, so effectively, that I didn't even know it was there myself.
In my defense my intent was pure. I still believe, for the most part, that in an effort to culture a certain humility, one also has to sustain a certain amount of value judgement. Implicit in in such nonjudgemental delivery is an ebsence of anger. In order to get angry you first have to be affronted, and often, in order to feel afronted, you sort of have to judge another's intent, another's behavior, another's value system.
And there are methods: it's not personal, you don't understand, better to feel compassion than anger for the misstep that led to such an action, better to concentrate how to make it right for you.
All noble processes, reasonable in their intent.
Still anger is there. We experience such things, rightous or misplaced as part of our defense systems, part of a necessary line of judgement in the quest to choose people, places and things, choices that will make of safe, comfortable and happy.
And truth be told, I put up with a lot shit, a lot of things my anger should have kept in check, and that, in the end...well, it's a vicious cycle right?

So there is that anger I won't acknowledge but I've made my pet. And like any pet it's wont to misbehave. So I give it treats and feed it and flourish, lest it rebel or cause a stir. Lest it misbehave more. And like a shadow that keeps growing in the afternoon sun, it lurks, it leeches, it's always there, even when the sun goes down. In lamp light, in reflection, whispery, taking on a life of it's own, still undeniable tethered to me.

So I let the anger out. Faced it head on so I might understand it better. Do a better job training it, make it lean, mean and effectively pointed and utilized, instead of the large, mushy bully, apt to lash when any perceived threat presents, it had become.

But I don't know. I'm new at this. I've never had a pet. And so sometimes I do the wrong thing and train it to do things I'd never begin to want it to do. Sometimes it takes up all my thoughts, invades places that have no interest in it, threads through the fabric of places much more dear, much more precious than I ever though it could reach.
Everything, indeed, is touched by it's presence.

And the dreams. Oh the dreams. So betrayed, so mirthless, so trapped am I.
In these dreams.

Thank heavens for my waking reprieve, when I once again have a chance to tame the monster in bright light, looking it in the face for the first time in years, before shadows give it free reign, once again. And there I am, only hoping it's smaller this time, weaker from it's daytime fight.