LOUDER THAN ANGER IN THE QUIET CHAIR.

At fourteen I was old enough to know the weight

of a voice that cracks like a ruler on a desk.

In the Children’s Home, trouble meant thunder,

names thrown sharper than sleet against windows,

silence clamped like a lock on the tongue.

.

From punishment I learned to freeze, not think;

to brace, not understand.

Once, after running away,

sprinting nowhere with all my might,

I was dragged back across the gravelled yard

each tiny stone silent, complicit;

and made to present my hand for the rod.

Not a cane, a fishing rod:

thin, whistling, cruel in its accuracy.

He said it would “teach me not to stray.”

But it only confirmed

what I already knew:

that pain delivered from the outside

could never find its way in to me.

.

So the times I pushed too far,

in temper slammed a book, muttered something sharp

I was already waiting for the storm.

But he was different: simply pointed to a chair by the wall

and said, calm as a breath,

“Your emotions are louder than your thinking.”

No shame.

No raised voice.

Just that single sentence

landing heavier than any punishment I recall.

I sat there, expecting the sting of guilt,

but instead the room went still.

My heartbeat started talking louder than my anger.

I saw my fists balled tight,

as if gripping a burning match.

I let them open – the heat faded on its own.

.

Back in prior time

this would’ve been exile.

“Go stand in the hall.”

Face red, head down, half a smirk;

learn fear and call it discipline.

But with ‘Uncle’ Keith, things were different.

He gave me a moment to meet myself,

not hide from him.

And, strangely enough, it worked.

.

A few weeks in,

I saw it happening to others too.

Charles nearly swung at Dai one morning

shoulders tense, teeth clenched;

but he stopped,

and you could almost see

the thought returning to his face.

The fight melted before it even formed.

The clashes dwindled.

Not because we turned saintly,

we still wound each other up,

still sparked like wires too close,

but we learned to catch the spark

before it spread.

.

We noticed the moment the noise rose.

We knew what that chair was for.

He once told me, in that steady voice of his:

“I’m not teaching you to be good.

I’m helping you to notice when you’re not.”

I think about that more than I’d admit it was needed.

.

Back in those days

I behaved because I feared the echo of authority.

Later I learned a different obedience,

the kind that comes

from seeing myself more clearly.

It’s a different kind of courage.

So now, anger no longer climbs up my ribs,

because I pause,

no longer scared,

And because I’ve learned to listen.

And in that short, quiet space,

the storm finds its way out

without taking me with it.