The Prizefighter

"He’s a prizefighter

And he owns rings

And he owns skins

And now he’s swinging”

　

　

　

It’s a Tuesday night, and I’m watching the world slip away from my hands. I’m falling, falling down like some great crashing meteor blazing into Earth’s atmosphere. I’m watching the stars above me and they’re fierce--fierce like the night itself, and for all it’s fierceness I’m pacified. Fear is running through my veins, coursing through me like blood, slithering through my arms and my legs like snakes until they strangle my circulation and turn limp. The blood, it pulsates, never letting me forget I’m human. Never letting me forget that I’m not perfect. The blood, I can feel it falling with me. Sinking, and my heart beats faster than it should. It skips, and my pulmonary arteries jump out of my skin , and asphyxia, death by strangulation.

There’s a man wringing my throat because as I’m flailing I can’t scream. I reach out to free myself, my shaking hands pushing out into darkness, searching, finding nothing. They sweep the air, looking and find no strangler. Just myself.

Someone is looking above me. A great face swells like a ceiling above me, and they’re throwing fingers in my face. Counting the brief numerology.

One. Two. Three.

My body is sinking through canvas.

My legs are rubber, and when I try to move them, they flop like cooked noodles, boiling in the same manner. My shorts stick to my thigh, stinging there, pressed against welting skin.

My hair is tasseled, and my face is ripped wide open so that the depths of my skull address the cool air. Small beads of sweat running down my forehead are the only thing that tells me it’s not.

My arms are smothered against my body, but I’m not worried.

All I can hear are the numbers.

Four. Five. Six.

My body is crumpled up and the excited face I’m staring at looks like he’s begging me to get up. The numbers, they spell defeat.

I try to rise. I strain, every muscle in my limbs tensing like two ton weights are attached, and my legs push my weight up. I build momentum. I work towards freedom. Towards liberation. Towards salvation. I can see my cheering opponent, his thick pulsing arms catapulting in the air. He gallops around the ring, dancing over my body. I wish I could see his face so I could curse it, but with his back towards to me, I can only on-look in admiration. I remember feeling the wind of a Chicago prize-fighter grazing my face.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

I’m almost up. My legs are swaying, but I’m almost stable. Then, my legs, they dive out behind me, and my face meets canvas. I can taste blood flowing through my mouth, and a chipped tooth rattling against my cheeks. I’m seeing birds flying around my head. Black doves with red eyes moving swiftly, circling.

I wish I could fly like they do.

My bones ache to the point that my limbs shake vicariously. I am no longer the master of my body.

I hear words from a distance resounding through my ears. It was imminent. Tiny tears filled under the lids of my eyes, and I’m glad my face is hidden from sight by the floor I’ve smashed against.

Ten.

I hear the crowd begin to cheer outside the ring, and big strong hands lift me up. Moving me to the corner of my ring. Where a cut-man awaits to fix me up. I feel soft, and my skin twists and tangles under this. I feel my feet dragging on the canvas, and I feel the bruises I’ll remember getting in the morrow.

And then dark, it swallows me whole.

Jonas and the Whale

David and Goliath

Cain and Abel

Remember thy Brother

And I’m left wondering how this all started.