My give a shit is busted

Everybody knows my brother died. Today was six months since it happened. I feel weird saying anything about it when time has passed, because I don't want to discuss it really. I just want to say all the things I think, shut them in a closet and walk away. I don't want to hear how sorry people are he died. I don't want hugs, most of the time. Because really his death has left me in a feral place. I am a generally pleasant person, at least outwardly. I hide all my icky meanness inside like a good citizen. But lately I feel like a trapped animal. Like I am just waiting for danger to strike and I must stay tensely vigilant to prevent the attack. I want to howl at the moon and beat people for no good reason. When people of no relevance to me pour out their heart about matters that mean absofreakinglutely nothing to me, I want to bare my fangs and rip out their throat and piss on their remains. I want to mark my territory and march along the boundaries with the stink eye ready for those who dare cross it. Because all the things that are wrong cannot be fixed. He is dead. We weren't close as adults. My own mortality is a hair's breath away. My children could die any second. AND THERE ISN"T A BLANKITY BLANK THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. At the cemetery today a man and his friends rode up on four wheelers. I didn't recognize them. They dismounted and approached my father for conversation. They asked if his boy had gone to WVU (they were thinking of our cousin Al's son, Big John). Before I knew what I was doing I had moved to my dad's side and had to bury my face in his shoulder to keep from literally staring this man and his companions down. To keep from saying something evil and mean and designed to chase them off. I have no hackles and yet they were raised and my blood boiled.

I struggle to keep my temper even with those I love and cherish. I want to enjoy every minute as though it could be our last, but I cannot. When Aurelia asks where Shannon is, I know it is her trying to figure out life and death and the hereafter. But all I can think is "I have already told you all I know and I know nothing. SO STOP ASKING." I have an addiction to yarn. Yarn doesn't talk or ask or look at me knowingly. Yarn is yarn until I make it something else. And then it remain inanimate.