We have to take our anger and rage and channel it into building

Host: The warehouse was quiet except for the sound of rain dripping through a cracked skylight. Concrete floors echoed faintly with each step, the air thick with the smell of rust, paint, and time. Outside, the city pulsed — horns, sirens, a heartbeat of chaos — but inside, only the whisper of an old space waiting for purpose.

Jeeny stood near a wall splattered with graffiti, the words of protest and pain layered one over the other. Her hands were streaked with red paint, her eyes bright with the fire of something unspoken.

Jack sat on a wooden crate, sleeves rolled up, a cigarette burning slowly between his fingers. His jaw was tense, his eyes distant — like a man still trying to find language for a kind of grief that wouldn’t stop echoing.

Host: The air between them was charged — not with romance, but with the static of conviction and exhaustion. Two souls standing at the intersection of destruction and rebuilding.

Jeeny: “Pramila Jayapal said — ‘We have to take our anger and rage and channel it into building, growing, loving, holding each other up.’”

Jack: (exhales smoke) “Channel it? That’s easy to say when the world isn’t burning around you.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s exactly when it has to be said. When the world’s on fire, we either add to the flames or learn to build from the ashes.”

Jack: “You think anger can build anything? Anger breaks things. That’s what it does. It tears down. That’s its nature.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we’ve been using it wrong.”

Host: The rain outside grew heavier, hitting the roof in steady sheets, like the rhythm of a beating heart. The light from a broken bulb flickered — on, off, on — painting their shadows across the wall in trembling silhouettes.

Jack: “You talk about anger like it’s some kind of art form. But anger isn’t patient, Jeeny. It’s not gentle. It doesn’t wait for permission to build. It wants revenge, not justice.”

Jeeny: “Maybe once. But it can change. Look at the civil rights movement — Dr. King said the same thing in different words: that hate can’t drive out hate. They took centuries of rage and turned it into marches, laws, hope. That wasn’t suppression, Jack. That was transformation.”

Jack: “Yeah, and for every King, there were a hundred broken bodies. Anger’s never been clean.”

Jeeny: “Nothing that births change ever is.”

Host: The light flickered again. Jeeny’s voice trembled slightly, not from fear but from conviction — the kind that rises after witnessing too much.

Jeeny: “You think building is gentle? It’s not. It’s loud. It’s painful. Every wall, every bridge, every act of love — all of it is a rebellion against destruction.”

Jack: “Love as rebellion? You sound like a poet trapped in a riot.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s exactly what this world needs — poets in riots. Builders in the rubble. People who take their rage and make gardens out of it.”

Host: A train rumbled in the distance, shaking dust loose from the rafters. Jack’s eyes followed the sound — something about it reminded him of movement, of the fact that the world kept turning no matter how much it hurt.

Jack: “You really believe rage can be beautiful?”

Jeeny: “No. But I believe what we do with it can be. Rage is just energy. It’s fire. It can burn a house down, or it can keep you warm through the night.”

Jack: “So what, we’re just supposed to hug our demons and hope they turn into architects?”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “Maybe not hug them. But at least stop pretending they’re not there.”

Host: The rain softened, becoming a steady hum, like a mantra. Jack leaned forward, elbows on knees, cigarette dying between his fingers. His expression shifted — less defiance, more fatigue.

Jack: “You talk like you’ve never been angry enough to break something.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “I’ve broken plenty. Myself included.”

Jack looked up.

Jeeny: “But breaking wasn’t the hard part, Jack. It was learning how to build again. Learning how to take what shattered and turn it into something that could hold others up.”

Host: A draft moved through the space, stirring the dust and the smell of rain. Jeeny wiped her hands on her jeans, leaving streaks of red that looked almost like blood — or maybe seeds.

Jack: “You think love can hold all that pain? That kind of pressure?”

Jeeny: “It has to. Otherwise, what’s the point of surviving?”

Jack: “Surviving’s the point.”

Jeeny: “No. Living is. And living means turning pain into something that feeds. Something that lasts.”

Host: Jack’s gaze fell to the floor, where puddles of water reflected the light above. He could see both their faces in that reflection — one still, one trembling.

Jack: “When I marched last year, I thought I was changing something. Then the same headlines came back — different names, same blood. You tell me to build, but every time we do, someone tears it down again.”

Jeeny: “Then we build again.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Until when?”

Jeeny: “Until there’s nothing left to destroy.”

Host: The words hit the air like iron on stone.

Jack: “You’re exhausting, you know that?”

Jeeny: “Hope always is.”

Jack: (after a pause) “You think I’m hopeless?”

Jeeny: “No. Just tired. You’re the kind of tired that happens when someone once cared too much and got burned for it.”

Jack: “You sound like you know that feeling.”

Jeeny: (softly) “I do.”

Host: The warehouse seemed to breathe again — its silence no longer empty, but full of the weight of unspoken memories. The rain had stopped, replaced by the faint drip of water from the ceiling into a metal bucket.

Jack: “So what do we do with all this anger, then? The kind that doesn’t fade, the kind that sits in your bones like static.”

Jeeny: “We move it. We turn it into hands. Into work. Into kindness. We plant it, Jack. We plant it where it hurts.”

Jack: “And you think something will grow?”

Jeeny: “It always does. Maybe not today. Maybe not for us. But it grows.”

Host: She walked toward the wall and pressed her palm against the graffiti — red, black, blue — a mural of words like freedom, love, enough. Then, slowly, she dipped her hand back into the red paint and began to draw a heart over the cracks in the wall.

The color was vivid against the grey concrete.

Jeeny: “This is what I mean. We take what they meant to break us with — and we make it mean something else.”

Jack: (quietly) “You really think that’s enough?”

Jeeny: “It’s everything. Because anger alone ends the story. But love — love keeps it going.”

Host: The light steadied now, no longer flickering. The room felt less abandoned, more alive — as if the very act of painting had summoned warmth back into the air.

Jack stood, stepped beside her, and without saying a word, pressed his hand next to hers, leaving his own red mark beside the heart.

Jeeny turned to him — not smiling, but something deeper. Understanding.

Jack: “I guess that’s what she meant, huh? Taking the fire and making it light instead of smoke.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Rage is just the beginning. What matters is what you build from it.”

Host: Outside, the clouds began to lift. The sun broke through, sending a golden ray across the cracked wall, lighting up their handprints — imperfect, overlapping, human.

For a moment, neither spoke. The sound of the dripping water stopped, as if the world itself had paused to listen.

Jack looked at the wall, then at her.

Jack: “You think we’ll ever stop being angry?”

Jeeny: “I hope not. I just hope we keep learning to use it right.”

Host: The rain had left behind a strange, clean stillness. The city outside was waking again, but inside the warehouse — inside their small act of creation — there was only quiet, and the faint, steady rhythm of hearts still daring to build.

And in that quiet, their anger — once sharp and wild — had found a shape.

A heart, drawn in red, still dripping — but alive.