Thirsting For Vengeance While Seeking Grace
In my experience, forgiveness is something akin to a revelation. Forgiveness is bestowed upon me and expanded within me. It is through the grace of God that I am able to forgive, as I find myself unable to evoke the same response within me of my own accord.
When I have been wronged, the feelings of acrid resentment and the hot sting of shame, a hardening in my throat, and a strong undercurrent of fear begin to fester within me. My archaic lizard brain goes into overdrive, flooding my veins with adrenaline and cortisol. Then I feel the nauseating waves of shame; how could I have been so stupid? Why did I allow this to happen? How quickly this fear and shame mutates into rage.
There have been many nights where I’ve wanted to kill you. I want to believe that I would be capable of doing it myself. I want your rotting teeth ripped out one by one. I want your genitals shoved into a meat grinder. I want your fat white thighs slit open, cut neatly like slices of cake while you scream in abject horror, scream from a pain known mostly by those who were tortured in the middle ages. I want to force you to eat your own shit and meticulously shredded genitalia before you are brutally raped in the anus with a long serrated knife. Before you die, I want you to see me watching you get savagely tortured just for me – while I smile one last time – just for you. I’ll say, do you get it now? How does it feel to be humiliated and victimized by me this time? Your spirit is filth, your body is filth, so really I’m doing you a favor. You are an inferior human who easily would’ve been my slave in another era . . . but I would not want that anyhow! Even then I would not want to be burdened by looking at your disgusting visage. The world is a more peaceful, more beautiful place without you in it. You do not belong here. You belong in the ninth circle of hell, where you will get perpetually brutalized and raped by demons for eternity. Satan can handle you from here… so goodbye. Ciao! Adieu monsieur! Mwah!
I fantasize about all of this before my eyes become too bleary and my head too heavy to hold upright. I fantasize about all of this before I remind myself that it is truly none of my business what becomes of that person, or the others. That it is up to fate and time and God. I fantasize about all of this before I remind myself that the greatest revenge is none at all.
I fantasize about all this before I drift off into the silent white space of a dreamless sleep that stretches infinitude.