Let each impact remind me – I have bones under my flesh – Feel them bend and shift under the
force – The leather skin of my knuckles splits – peels back – Again – Let the pressure out – I can
see the red as it stains the bag – My hands flash trying to grab parts of myself – My focus is on
my own fresh red – I can taste it in the air – smell it hanging around me – The seep of blood
through busted knuckles – lungs fill and deflate – This is what it means to be here – I can bleed – I
can feel – I can move my body – I am inside my body – I am flesh and skin hung on a skeleton –
There is lightning in the lumber – There is iron and fire in me – It feeds at times like this – Skin
will burst – stretched – I can grow! – It is here that I become something more – It is in my body
not my mind that I am me – Outpaces the brain – The peace washes over me – A drop of red that
falls from the hand clenched just right – I find myself able to be me in the time of their fall.