Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
-King Lear, Act 3 Scene II
I don't just want to tempt fate, I want to taunt her, goad her, triple-dog-dare her. I want to push my luck as far as luck can go.
I'm spoiling for a fight. When I was little, my grandmother told me stories about the devil and how he would steal my soul if I didn't take precautions, and the one thought that popped into my little bowl-cut head and never left was "Bring it, Satan." I was the kid at sleepovers who always tried to get Bloody Mary to appear, the kid who took the ouiji board too far, the one who would jump the fence to get the ball from the vicious dog, the blackeyed idiot who would spit blood at the rednecks, just asking for more.
One of my old friends, now long lost to the corners of whatever world he stumbled off into, once, after having to physically restrain me from trying to go out and steal traffic signs with a near-fatal blood/alcohol content, gave me a long hard look and told me, "You remind me of a dog that chases cars just because it likes being hit." There might be something to that.
When I played football in high school, before the days of the chemical expeditions, I played JV defensive end and everyday after school at practice, I had one job: carry the ball, run along a straight line, and try not to flinch as the varsity linebackers take turns practicing their tackling technique, laying me out with bonecrunching hits. Everyday, twice a day during summer practice, I was a live tackling dummy for guys almost twice my size. I never got any better at dodging or feinting, as that was strictly forbidden, but the one valuable skill that was quite literally beaten into my head was how to take a hit. I still associate the smell of freshly cut grass in the morning with two-a-day practice and that antiseptic adrenaline rush of impact with the dirt.
Physical pain was just the appetizer. I have scars from the arthroscopies but you'd have to pour through ancient journal entries to see the extent of the wounds to my pride and my heart dealt by various pretty girls, who could make the linebackers' most violent victories seem like kind and gentle embraces in comparison. For all the times it's laid shattered like headlight glass on rainy asphault, for all its missing pieces that now sit as trophies on select girls' mantlepieces, for all the glue and yellowed tape holding the chipped remnants together, I'm honestly surprised my heart still beats.
Now, in the absence of the usual self inflicted handicap of chemical restraints, all these old urges kick in... the old self destruction splits a toothless smile at me and whispers the crumpled contents of dormant love letters addressed to distant memories. The writing instinct kicks into overdrive, hysterical, trying to organize, but the words provide no resistance, no fight, and the gears strip themselves raw revving against this horrible lack of friction. My head is a thundercloud, a mass of negatively charged ions scraping against itself, folding into itself, looking for any available avenue of release, opposition the only means of relief. If I knew where to find the gates of Hell, that's where you would find me.
There has to be a way to fight this. Not the feeling, but the war. Not the "War" war, but the real war, the one true fight I've been looking for since I can remember. How do other people pick their battles? How do they fight them? My inner demons-- all rippling muscle and pointed wit-- would eat yours for breakfast. I'm mean drunk on sobriety and I've finally overpowered my friend-- that pacifist drug-- and traffic signs litter the landscape... how do I go about stealing them? My best efforts to tempt fate into showing herself on the battlefield of my life have thus far failed to gain results... how do you confront fate on your own terms? How do you engage the opposition into springing your ambush?
I'm running with the ball, eyes closed, awaiting the hit, with the knowledge that this time, no force I've ever encountered can manage to dent me in the slightest... what happens if the hit never comes?
Right now I'm a pool of gasoline waiting for a spark. I need to find my engine.
All my life I've been searching for something
something never comes, never leads to nothing
nothing satisfies, but I'm getting close
closer to the prize at the end of the rope
All night long I dream of the day
when it comes around then it's taken away
Leaves me with a feelin' that I feel the most
Feel it come to life when I see your ghost
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
-King Lear, Act 3 Scene II
I don't just want to tempt fate, I want to taunt her, goad her, triple-dog-dare her. I want to push my luck as far as luck can go.
I'm spoiling for a fight. When I was little, my grandmother told me stories about the devil and how he would steal my soul if I didn't take precautions, and the one thought that popped into my little bowl-cut head and never left was "Bring it, Satan." I was the kid at sleepovers who always tried to get Bloody Mary to appear, the kid who took the ouiji board too far, the one who would jump the fence to get the ball from the vicious dog, the blackeyed idiot who would spit blood at the rednecks, just asking for more.
One of my old friends, now long lost to the corners of whatever world he stumbled off into, once, after having to physically restrain me from trying to go out and steal traffic signs with a near-fatal blood/alcohol content, gave me a long hard look and told me, "You remind me of a dog that chases cars just because it likes being hit." There might be something to that.
When I played football in high school, before the days of the chemical expeditions, I played JV defensive end and everyday after school at practice, I had one job: carry the ball, run along a straight line, and try not to flinch as the varsity linebackers take turns practicing their tackling technique, laying me out with bonecrunching hits. Everyday, twice a day during summer practice, I was a live tackling dummy for guys almost twice my size. I never got any better at dodging or feinting, as that was strictly forbidden, but the one valuable skill that was quite literally beaten into my head was how to take a hit. I still associate the smell of freshly cut grass in the morning with two-a-day practice and that antiseptic adrenaline rush of impact with the dirt.
Physical pain was just the appetizer. I have scars from the arthroscopies but you'd have to pour through ancient journal entries to see the extent of the wounds to my pride and my heart dealt by various pretty girls, who could make the linebackers' most violent victories seem like kind and gentle embraces in comparison. For all the times it's laid shattered like headlight glass on rainy asphault, for all its missing pieces that now sit as trophies on select girls' mantlepieces, for all the glue and yellowed tape holding the chipped remnants together, I'm honestly surprised my heart still beats.
Now, in the absence of the usual self inflicted handicap of chemical restraints, all these old urges kick in... the old self destruction splits a toothless smile at me and whispers the crumpled contents of dormant love letters addressed to distant memories. The writing instinct kicks into overdrive, hysterical, trying to organize, but the words provide no resistance, no fight, and the gears strip themselves raw revving against this horrible lack of friction. My head is a thundercloud, a mass of negatively charged ions scraping against itself, folding into itself, looking for any available avenue of release, opposition the only means of relief. If I knew where to find the gates of Hell, that's where you would find me.
There has to be a way to fight this. Not the feeling, but the war. Not the "War" war, but the real war, the one true fight I've been looking for since I can remember. How do other people pick their battles? How do they fight them? My inner demons-- all rippling muscle and pointed wit-- would eat yours for breakfast. I'm mean drunk on sobriety and I've finally overpowered my friend-- that pacifist drug-- and traffic signs litter the landscape... how do I go about stealing them? My best efforts to tempt fate into showing herself on the battlefield of my life have thus far failed to gain results... how do you confront fate on your own terms? How do you engage the opposition into springing your ambush?
I'm running with the ball, eyes closed, awaiting the hit, with the knowledge that this time, no force I've ever encountered can manage to dent me in the slightest... what happens if the hit never comes?
Right now I'm a pool of gasoline waiting for a spark. I need to find my engine.
All my life I've been searching for something
something never comes, never leads to nothing
nothing satisfies, but I'm getting close
closer to the prize at the end of the rope
All night long I dream of the day
when it comes around then it's taken away
Leaves me with a feelin' that I feel the most
Feel it come to life when I see your ghost
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