most of the time i don’t remember. what it feels like. when a fist collides with a face, the force of it, the power, the crunch of bones, the thick flattening of skin as it spreads underneath hard, sharp knuckles to rip and bleed like an oilspring. i remember what it tastes like, your tongue heavy in your mouth like a dead slug. i remember what it smells like, sweat and blood and fear. but mostly i don’t remember what it feels like.

afterwards, when nursing bruises and wounds, i think back, remembering what my body tells me then: fight, it says. you fool, are you going to let them win? they who laughed at you, they who mocked you secretly, they who said you didn’t matter, they who let you down. fight, you fool. fight as if your life depended on it, as if every breath you take might be your last, as if every ounce of being in you is alive only and for this moment. fight, you fucker. fight until you can’t move, until your nose is filled with blood and broken and you can feel holes in the gaps of where your teeth used to be, fight until every muscle screams in agony and refuses to answer, until your eyes are bloody. but i don’t remember what it feels like.

i only prepare for one fight. every night, the same fight. it is a fight i began from birth. it is not a fight i chose but it is a fight i fight. the fight has no beginning, i only came into its middle, and it has no end. it is a fight we all fight. sometimes i am pitted against you and sometimes you are pitted against you. there are other combinations, an infinite actually but each fight is one fight. it is always one fight. and each fight is different, the fight changes with each failure and each victory, each knockout and each collapse. but each fight is one fight. it is a fight we all fight. there are no winners or losers, only victories and losses, and an infinity in between. the fight has one rule. there is one grand champion. the grand champion cannot be defeated. in the end, he always wins. there is no fighting him. this is the only rule. he appears in our dreams often. sometimes as falling from an airplane, sometimes as alzheimer’s slow, certain forgetting, sometimes as a cold, nauseating, invincible, always proliferating cancer, other times as lethargy, wondrous lethargy that sucks all joy down its black hole of endless hours looking for something you know doesn’t exist. lethargy that turns into something more insidious, a poison seeping through your veins, a toxin fastening itself to your neurons, spreading thoughts that whisper incessantly of expectations and a failure to live up to them, the chains of family, the world and the social contract, the pressure from a society that values the appearance of your physicality over its actual functionality or even your brain, not being good enough,ever. and there he is. the grand champion. in every noose that tightens around a broken neck, every poison that eats through your stomach walls like an acid, every razor that zips down a naked wrist, every 8-ball laced with rat poison, and that last bottle of sweet sweet whiskey that sends that last liver cell crumbling into nothingness. in the end, he (or was it a she?) is there for us all.

the bruise it heals. there is a stinging now and then, just to remind me that its there. but more and more, there is an emptiness, a feeling of missing what was once there. each time, the hole feels bigger, slightly, just slightly. and still i don’t remember what it feels like.

[end]

Come to the door, Ma, and unlock the chain
I was just passin’ through and got caught in the rain
There’s nothin’ I want, nothin’ that you need say
Just let me lie down for a while and then I’ll be on my way

I was no more than a kid when you put me on the Southern Queen
With the police on my back I fled to New Orleans
I fought in the dockyards and with the money that I made
And the fight was my home and any blood was my trade

Baton Rouge, Ponchatoula, and La Fayette town
Well they paid me the moon, Ma, to knock the men down
I did what I did, when it come easily
Restraint and mercy were always strangers to me

I fought champion Jack Thompson in a field full of mud
Rain poured through the tent to the canvas and mixed with our blood
In the twelfth, I slipped my tongue over my broken jaw
And I stood over him, pounded his blooded body into the floor

Well the bell rang and rang, still I kept on
‘Til I felt my glove leather slip ‘tween his skin and bone
And the women and the money came fast, in the days I lost track
The women red, the money green, but the numbers were black
I fought for the men in their silk suits to lay down their bets
Well I took my good share, Ma, and I had no regret

I took the fixed staid hombre with Big Diamond Don
From high in the rafters I watched myself fall
So he raised his arms, my stomach twisted, and the sky it went black
I stuffed my bag with their good money, and I never looked back
Understand me, and Ma, every man plays a game
If you know anyone different, then speak out his name

Well Ma, if my voice, now you don’t recognize
And just open the door and look into your dark eyes
I ask of you nothin’, not a kiss, not a smile
Just open the door and let me lie down for a while

Now the grey rain is fallin’ and my ring fighting’s done
So in the work fields and alleys, I take them who’ll come
If you’re a better man than me then just step to the line
And show me your money and speak out your crime
There’s nothin’ I want, Ma, nothin’ that you need say
Just let me lie down for a while and then I’ll be on my way

Well tonight in the shipyard, a man draws a circle in the dirt
Like I always do, I move to the centre and I take off my shirt
I study him for the cuts, the scars, the pain man no time can erase
I move hard to the left and I strike to the face

1. nasal fracture

2. skull fracture

3. subtemporal hematoma (blood in the brain)

4. broken clavicle

5. mass fracture of two vertebrae (C7 T1)

6. swelling in the brain

7. bell’s palsy (facial paralysis of the left side)

8. a hole in the ear

these are the most extensive injuries i have ever suffered in my life. i don’t quite know how close i came to death but i assume i was spared. most of my injuries have healed now. the nasal fracture was little to begin with, the skull fracture has healed and so have the mass fractures in the vertebrae. the broken clavicle was operated on and now i have a metal plate in my shoulder. the ear is healing slowly, although a sharp ringing accompanies most of my day. the only thing that remains is the paralysis. its more of an annoyance than a real injury. it doesn’t hurt but it nags. i cannot eat properly, i cannot drink properly and every word i speak sounds as if it comes through mush. its like the left side of my face is under novocaine forever. its frustrating to not be able to move a part of your own body. to look in the mirror and try with all your will, all your might to move that eyebrow, that side of the lips, to hold that eyelid down. but they don’t respond. a connection has been severed somewhere and it is unpleasant. 

i think about the fairness of it all and then remind myself of the stupidity. what fairness? has there ever been any in the world? there is no balance, no ying and yang. its all absurd. life is most random and to try and look for patterns is not just foolish but inane and stupid. and yet i feel a desire to scream, to yell, to vent, to be angry at something, anything for doing this to me. i want to believe in god so that i can curse at him. because all i feel right now is impotent rage, an anger at nothing, that has no object and hence, is useless. 

what is it about me that the world cannot stand? is that a question i’m allowed to ask? or does that infer some faith in a higher power? whether that be god or nature? depression is anger without enthusiasm. and i feel myself sliding down. what is to be done? the doctors say the medicine isn’t working yet, give it time they say. i have. i just don’t know how much time my sanity has left. its frayed already and on edge. it might snap any second and then what? reduced to a blubbering idiot? not just foaming at the mouth but frothing at the brain. 

and you know the worst part? i can’t think straight. i can’t focus. my brain feels sluggish, as if its dragging something very heavy behind it. what if i lose my brain? what if this dullness is permanent? what if what if what if? i live in perpetual fear. i don’t want tomorrow to come, for who knows what crisis it might bring. this is what its like to live in mortal fear. the fear of losing your mind.