I’m on my third cup of coffee this morning with a candle burning and the soundscapes of birds in my ears. My journal’s pages are smudged with the frantic inking of a pen that I had engraved with “Barbara the Writer” as if to prove to myself daily I am what I am.

Where does it live in your body?

The question was posed in the pages of a good book, a life changing one, a book that has prompts in seemingly all the right places.

Where does anger live in your body and what does it have to say?

Well, fuck.

Closing my eyes and dropping into my body, the familiar sweeps of sadness hiding the ferocity of anger emerged.

Sadness is my softness, it’s the acceptable way to be in this world. We’re all sad at times, we all have something heavy to carry, we all have grief in our heart in some way.

“Set her to the side, set sadness to the side, so that anger can have it’s say.”

It’s a feeling more than a thought, as sadness agrees to take a seat and allow for the anger to come forward today but she’s wary because anger is who she protects.

And this is where I typically get stuck in my discovery, stuck in my writing, stuck in my throat, because when anger emerges it’s not a good look. I’m no longer a good girl, I no longer speak with reason and comfort.

That’s why I’m grateful for the word “fuck.”

The word “fuck” bubbles up and the exhale of its syllable is another way for me to create freedom in my body. A word that’s been policed and given a bad rep and connected to sin and spite and encompasses all the unholiness of humanity in its four letter walls.

But why?

The word “fuck” allows me to reclaim and renounce.

Fuck you. I reclaim my body and renounce the image of female purity.

Fuck that. I reclaim my freedom and renounce the ways of “supposed to.”

Fuck no. I reclaim my mind and renounce the cell walls built there.

Fuck this. I reclaim my power and stand on the right side of history.

I’m on my third cup of coffee and with the help of the word “fuck” I make a little more room for the rage to be.