Passive Aggression

A passive-aggressive poem on passive aggression.

I want to live in a world without words
A world where a sweet delicate combination of sounds
Cannot jolt my heartbeat the wrong way
I’ll probably listen a lot better to other sounds
like the incessant honking on an empty road
and my mother clattering dishes in the kitchen

But then
I’ll turn these sounds into thoughts
and thoughts into sounds again
ones that sound sweeter
milder
gentler
so CLONGCLINGCLANGBANG
becomes passive aggression
My tongue smoothing over the sliding ssssses

Passive aggression
is a gentle enough set of sounds
It’s a soft P
A thread of sssses
A little bump like a firm rock, that G
And more sssses.

Passive Aggression
settles over my face and my nostrils
like a film of plastic
It makes my face itch
I think that’s just the G
so I shift awkwardly under it

But it clings to my cheeks
I yank
and I hear a RRRRRRRRRRIIIIPPPPPPP
and there goes another
CLANGGGGLANGGGTONGGLINGGINGLING
against the sides of my eyeballs

Passive Aggression did that
No, I don’t like words at all
Sneaky buggers.