Nice Girls Don't Get Angry

Poetry Collection No. 4 including Doubt is My Middle Name & Armour.

Hey friend,

This month’s collection is bought you by anger, self-doubt, and people pleasing. I guess it all fits with the grander themes of perfectionism, guilt, and laying it all down at the foot of the cross. It means so much to me that you are here, reading these words. I don’t take it for granted.

Photo by Ben Stern on Unsplash

Doubt is My Middle Name 

Riffing on Psalm 18 

Doubt stops me leaping over a wall, 

doubt lets me do nothing at all. 

Doubt has me cringing at the very first brick, 

picking and picking until I’m sick. 

What if I’m wrong? What if I’m right?

What will they think? Why even fight? 

Doubt makes me droop, I’ll never 

run against a troop 

But the God who stoops

to see the skies, descends 

to meet me at the wall. He gently 

gives the shield of salvation. 

He is a refuge for all. 

Armour 

An oyster grows its own luminescent 

silver and black shell. The glossy sheen, 

weathered like a knight’s armour. 

My armour weighs down my shoulders. 

Spikes protrude from the pauldron, 

my visor slams over my face. 

An oyster’s heart is hidden next 

to its shell. I hang the scallop’s 

resplendent red over my heart, 

tiny ridges symmetrically spaced 

across the breast-plate. Scattered

shells on the seashore are discarded 

by their creators. I wonder 

when my armour will wash up?

Nice Girls Don’t Get Angry 

Anger stabs me above my eye, but I don’t 

listen because nice girls don’t get angry.

Anger aches and shakes my jaw, but I don’t 

listen because nice girls don’t get angry.

Anger severs the connection between my brain 

and my words. I can’t talk, but I breeze past it

because nice girls don’t get angry.

Anger seeps into my neck, shoulders, tense, 

tightening, curling, screaming. But I don’t

listen, because nice girls don’t get angry. 

Anger tries again, searing a highway down 

my chest. But I pop pills and don’t listen 

because nice girls don’t get angry  

Anger descends to my stomach: a roiling, 

boiling, nauseous toiling, but I don’t listen 

because nice girls don’t get angry. 

I’m fine. I’m just ignoring my friend who tells 

me this is not okay. I can’t open the door, 

so I bar it with my body, sob while she kicks 

and screams, “don’t do this!” on the other side  

because all I want is for you to think I’m nice.  

Thanks for reading!

You can read previous poetry collections here:  

A Psalm for My Nightmare | A Prayer for a Grudge | What Discontent Says