I am afraid of the Instagram icon on my phone.
It sounds ridiculous when I say it like that. A harmless little symbol sitting among other harmless little symbols. And yet, whenever I unlock my phone and see it there, something in me collapses.
My finger approaches the icon, and something tightens in me. My chest, my jaw, my lips, my muscles. It is as if my whole body knows that behind that icon there may be something waiting for me. Not just information. Judgment. Malice. The casual cruelty of people who hide behind screens and mistake cowardice for courage.
Maybe I’m just assuming that only bad things are waiting for me there. Maybe that assumption is not entirely fair. But it is not entirely false either. Negativity is everywhere.
But maybe, if I am honest, I am not only afraid of an icon.
Maybe I am afraid of what I become when I face malice.
Maybe I am afraid of the part of me that wants to answer cruelty with a greater cruelty.
And that terrifies me.
Because I have seen what monsters can do. I have seen how people can injure one another, how they can humiliate, destroy, poison, and leave wounds that do not close easily. I do not want to become one of them. I do not want to become the thing I hate.
So I hold it in.
I press my lips together. I tighten my muscles. I restrain myself. I use all my energy to keep that inner monster behind the wall.
It is exhausting. The monster keeps banging on the door. It demands a way out.
But perhaps the question is not whether I should release it or imprison it. Perhaps both choices are dangerous.
Maybe what I call the monster is not pure evil. Maybe it is wounded power. Maybe it is rage that has never been given a clean language. Maybe it is the part of me that knows I have been hurt, disrespected, misunderstood, or attacked, and it does not want me to kneel anymore.
Perhaps what I ought to do is teach it how to speak without burning the world down.
That little icon on my screen is not just an app.
It is a gate.
And behind that gate, I meet an ignored part of myself.
