Trainwreck

I am very good at being calm and collected,
Actually I’m just really good at pretending to be calm.
Afraid to be called a hysterical woman or an angry feminazi,
I’ve started keeping calm little man in my head.

When a man makes me uncomfortable in the metro,
And I want to scream and gouge his eyeballs out.
The calm one startles me and makes me take a deep breath,
A breath so deep that my fucking throat hurts.

While I splutter and cough he takes over,
And tries to make sense of the train wreck in my brain.
By this time, the culprit or perhaps the victim of my anger,
Has already gotten off at some platform.

The little calm man knows how to manage,
The various trains in the busy railway station.
Where each fucking thought comes crashing into one another,
Onto this made up platform inside my head.

The calm one is tinkering in the control room,
He is stopping some trains and letting others pass.
The ones he lets pass are full of questions and thoughts,
Designed to invalidate my anger and confuse me.

Maybe he was just looking at my too- long hair,
The hair which I have curled and dyed a bright green,
Or was he looking at my large breasts which I can’t seem to hide,
No matter how many safety pins and buttons I use.

Leaning lazily against the walls of the control room,
The calm little man is ignoring the controls.
He is confident that these thoughts will consume me,
And help me maintain the facade of a dignified calm.

However an angry train cuts clean to the platform,
So powerful that it derails all other thoughts.
It beckons me as its doors smoothly slide open really wide,
And after I enter, they shut tight and trap me in.

The true injustice of the world blacken the windows,
Suffocating inside this train I bang on the doors.
The calm one quickly muscles me out and banishes the thought,
And saves me from boiling in my own rage.  

The calm one steals control of my body from me,
Muting my tongue and paralyzing my fists.
It both scares me and comforts me to know that he ensures,  
That my anger just reddens my neck and cheeks.

The calm little man tells me to check my body,
I try to stop the adrenaline from the flight or fight mode.
In the voice that sounds disturbingly similar to my mother’s,
The calm one praises and comforts me.