I AM UNSURE HOW TO BEGIN, as I have started and stopped more than I care to admit. Sometimes stopping out of fear, I have written chapters that will never see the light of day. Sometimes starting out of anger—I am frustrated by my own ramblings as rage can only take me but so far. There truly is no safe place to pour out my soul, and I once found solace in the new thoughts I could entrap somewhere between the notepad and the printed page. I cannot, and will not, promise that what follows will not again result in the incoherent, self-indulgent ramblings of an humbled-narcissist. My insecurities and anger betray me at every turn—insecurities stemming from my blackness, my Southernness, and my aloofness—anger resulting from having loved one, who cheated, the resentment fashioned from being hated by my own and even more hated by those, who disown me. I am a black Baptist from a low-income background—in the eyes of this world, I am less than nothing. My mother and father gave me all they had and did not have as I was protected by my older brother and older sister, who I love more than life. Then there is my native United States, which I love despite some ugly realities that have left me beyond jaded. I over-compensate, I over-extend, and I resentfully show compassion to the racists I despise. I have feigned the personality of the misogynists I detest, I have pretended to share the exaggerated fears of the xenophobes I dread and given silent ascent to the homophobes I pity. I am angry. I am angriest with myself. I am, in all likelihood, one of the angriest men in the history of history. And as if unto death, I offer to the world my past, my heart, my failures and my abandoned hopes without precondition. I am far too much of a coward to commit suicide (just yet) and have reached a breaking point in which I must either air my grievances with myself and this world, or finally amass the courage to exit this place. My detractors will undoubtedly say, “Then Jerry, please do us all a favor, stop whining and kill yourself already!” However, as Neil Young remains on this side of eternity, I am best off staying put for the time being. Yet, I would console my detractors my assuring them that should this work be published, I will lose my fiancé, I will lose the congregation I pastor, I will lose my house, I will lose what passes for my assets, I will lose yet another opportunity to complete my doctorate, I will lose those persons who risked so much in daring to befriend me, and short of being pronounced dead by a physician, will possess all the characteristics of a fresh corpse. I now present to you...my anger anthem.