Slow Burn

Originally written July 4, 2006

It's getting exciting now. Three weeks to go. Think of everything we've accomplished, man. You can really start to feel it inside of you, burning brightly, burning you up. Everyone has a breaking point, that moment when patience and hope move on down the bar. Every time I feel that constant pressure to succumb to my weaknesses , that I get tired of being kicked around and worked all night and all day, those moments of weakness that allow you to think you can let up, that the pressure is all in your head. I see those moments as they approach like armies crossing a great plain before me, and I let them wash over me; I take in the rush of knowing it’s not going the way I planned, that the walls are closing in and there is nothing I can do. It’s the glow of taking a punch to the face, the rush that no matter what you do to me I'm going to revel in it.

Bring on your sleepless nights and your alcohol chasers. Force me to commit everything I have and everything I am to getting the job done. Show me the demons of everyone around me, bring their drama into my world, make me choose sides. Work me until I starve. Weaken me while I'm sick. Take me to that anger, that place when my world turns red. Watch me bleed fire.

I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more.