They told me my anger was a thing with teeth, a dangerous beast that could maim and kill if I were reckless enough to let it out. They told me my anger was ugly. Frightening. That it would make other people uncomfortable. That it made me unlovable.
“It’s best to get along, to make everybody happy,” they said.
“Don’t be so sensitive. They were only joking,” they said.
“Boys won’t like you. Don’t you want boys to like you?” they said.
“Smile,” they said.
Show your teeth but not your bite.
Here is who told me this: The mothers and grandmothers, church ladies and crossing guards. Teachers. Politicians. Ministers. Boys. Girls. Comedians. Strangers on the street. Movies and TV, advertisements and cartoons. Soap operas. Magazines. Books. Song lyrics. Sometimes they said it outright. Other times, it was said through pinched mouths and narrowed eyes. Through sighs and long, judging silences. Through rolled eyes and teasing. Through the withdrawal of their love until I could smile and make them happy again. Sometimes they even told me in ways that made it seem like a kindness.
“You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” they said.
But why would I want a bunch of dead flies in the first place?
“This is for your own good,” they said. “After all, you don’t want anyone to think you’re angry.”
But I am angry!
“No, you’re not,” they’d say with assurance. “You might just be getting sick.”
Here is what they meant by “angry”: Having strong opinions. Objecting to being mistreated. Disagreeing without apology. Raising my voice. Saying no.
They told me all this until I was worn down. Until I no longer trusted any of my feelings. Until I no longer trusted myself.
* * *
Sometimes, I glimpsed a stiff-bristled tail flick out around the edges of the mothers and grandmothers and crossing guards telling me to keep my anger hidden. A hint of their own feral anger muzzled deep within. I could sense it the way one can feel the heat coming off the eye of a stove that someone has forgotten to turn off. I’d even seen them explode when they could take the pretending no more. I watched in awe as they breathed fire like glorious, beautiful dragons. But the people rolled their eyes. Shamed them. Shunned them. They hurled words like stones to bring the dragons down: “Hysterical.” “Irrational.” “Hormonal.” “Ornery.” “Nag.” “Impossible.” “Bitch.”
“One of those angry women.”
Some other woman would grab hold of the angry one then. “C’mon now, honey. You don’t really mean that,” she’d say with a smile, words like a leash around the dragon’s neck.
She was only passing along the message she’d gotten from her mother, who’d gotten it from her mother, who’d gotten it from … well, you get the picture.
I watched it all, absorbed it like a punch. I began to equate anger with shame. With not being feminine. With being wrong. My anger was not a righteous truth-teller, a barometer of who to trust and who was an asshole. No. It was unseemly. It could make people not like me, which was clearly the very worst curse a girl could bring upon herself.
Now I, too, was afraid of what lived inside me. The sooner I locked it up, the better. Down in the basement of my soul, I held the leash of my anger and plucked the teeth from its mouth as it looked at me with sorrowful, betrayed eyes: Why are you doing this to me? To us? “It’s for our own good,” I parroted. My belly hurt like I’d swallowed boiling eels. “I can’t let you out; it’s too dangerous,” I said as I latched the basement door. “Because we are a girl. And girls should not be angry.”
* * *
Once upon a time, when my anger had no muzzle, I howled for three hours straight. I don’t remember the particular injustice. I only know that I was outraged and wounded as only a four-year-old in full possession of herself can be. My rage was full-throated. Stiff-fisted. Tight-legged and arch-backed. Punk AF. People from all over the neighborhood came to watch the spectacle of my fury as I threw myself onto our front lawn and yelped my indignation even after I’d long run out of gas and was going on pure fumes.
“You still at it?” Mrs. Celeski said on her way to get her mail late in the afternoon. Her sons were off at war. She drank whiskey and cursed with abandon. She was the angriest person I knew, and even she did not like the thing growing inside me. “Don’t you think you oughta quit by now?”
I did want to quit. I wanted to go inside. Eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Drink some Kool-Aid. But I had not yet been heard. I just needed someone to hear me. My rage was impotent. Worse, it had made me an object of ridicule and scorn. Like so many girls before me.
* * *
When you’re a girl, they expect you to numb what you really feel. What you know. They expect you to ignore that ache of angry truth creeping up the back of your throat while you try to swallow it down. They expect you to gaslight yourself. And after a while, you begin to question all your feelings. Maybe I’m wrong? I must be wrong. You hear yourself say things like:
“I mean, I’m not mad or anything.”
“I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a bitch.”
… GET ANGRY. DON'T DIE A MARTYR FOR THEIR COMFORT.
“Oh, sure, I know it was just a joke.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Sorry.” “Sorry.” “Sorry.” “Sorry.”
You forget how to howl. You forget that your feelings matter. You forget how to snarl along the fence: Stand back or I swear I will come for you. This is your only warning.
By high school, I had internalized the lessons well. I made friends with the angriest girls I could. I let them carry the water of my unbearable emotion. I hung behind as they stood out front, shouting truth to power, biting back—snap, snap, snap—taking their lumps. I envied them, of course. The girls who didn’t pretend to feel anything other than what was real. Who called bullshit with deuces raised.
My own beast did not go away. Captivity made it shrewd. With no teeth in the way, its tongue grew large and clever-bladed. Why throw a direct punch when you could slip a shiv of sarcasm between the ribs, one-handed and unobserved, served with the polite smile they’d taught you was acceptable? I was only joking—can’t you take a joke?
My hands ached from holding my own leash. My beast gnawed me from the inside, drawing blood. Better to bleed on the inside, I thought, than to let the thing out where everyone could see its ugliness. Occasionally, it got out anyway. It nosed the latch out of place to stand in the light of the kitchen. I laughed at it—“Oh that? That’s just a joke!”—and it slunk back down the steps, stung by my smile.
Oh, I was a good daughter. A sweet girl. So very likable. I burned in silence.
* * *
One day, I was in an accident. A terrible accident. A slick spot in the road, a mangled car, and a mangled face. I was so broken that all the latches inside me came undone. No one wanted to look at me, at my scars, my new ugliness. No one wanted to hear my pain, so much pain. God, the pain.
“You’re so strong. You just have to go on being strong,” they said with a pat on the shoulder and those same narrowed eyes. They did not care if I choked to death on my razor-blade feelings as long as I did not make them uncomfortable. As long as I didn’t howl with rage and hurt. And I began to understand: I would never be likable enough to have their love. Because I was a girl, and even a broken, bleeding girl needed to keep quiet.
* * *
It was the beast who came to the rescue the night I poured out the bottle of pills on my desk. It crept stealthily up the dark stairs into the light and nudged me with its cold nose. Hey. New teeth were coming in. They shone along its gum line like tiny seed pearls. “I have learned magic in the dark all these years,” it said. I had not realized how much I’d missed its snarl.
“Write your pain,” it said as it slipped into my pen. “Tell your story. Tell it with teeth.”
“I’m afraid,” I said. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember how to howl.”
“Yes, you do,” it promised. “I will remind you. But for fuck’s sake, get angry. Don’t die a martyr for their comfort.”
The beast inside saved my life. Words saved me. Anger and truth saved me. The thing with teeth did not fear me. It did not abandon me when all else did.
* * *
Because I was a girl, they told me not to get angry. They told me no one would love me if I did. But I know who I am: I am the thing with teeth. I am the messy, too-much-feeling girl who can smile and growl at the same time. I am the dragon slipped free of its leash.
“Would you like to see what lives inside me?” I say, the beast scratching at the locks of my soul.
I part my red lips in a grin, exposing a mouthful of glorious teeth.
And then I throw open the basement door.
* * *
Maybe there is a thing with teeth coiled within you, too?
Don’t be afraid.
Its bite may save your life.
I AM THE THING WITH TEETH. I AM THE MESSY, TOO-MUCH-FEELING GIRL WHO CAN SMILE AND GROWL AT THE SAME TIME. I AM THE DRAGON SLIPPED FREE OF ITS LEASH.