Blood trickles down

A poem about struggling

Blood trickles down

My face is soaked in it, like a sponge releasing liquid
The taste of metal fills my mouth guard
I’m grinning like a fool, adrenaline fills me with vigour
I can’t see but red, my face decorated with ruby cuts that split open and propel forth crimson fluid
Forward unto anything, everything and nothing

Salmon swimming against the current, leaping over the white frothy water
The lake is it’s own animal, but so is he
Salt in his mouth
His little fins are flapping constantly
The river fights back and yet he swims forth
Driven forward by what?

What are they doing now? The dentists of the world
Jumbling and mumbling about their beautiful lives
It feels like my last, my lungs feel heavy and my legs cement
I’m crumbling, help me I shout, I’m in deep water
My coach yells inconsequential instructions
And I swim

Somewhere in New Mexico, a bull lays in the middle of a dusty arena
with a crowd that shouts and screams for his blood
The bull is alone, excluding the matador that stands firmly
His foot on his neck, his neck under his foot
And the arena falls silent, but the slow groaning of the beast
as it bleeds away it’s life, with an Espada in its back
It grunts, it swims


The salmon is swimming, upstream against the tide
The gods will yell but the salmon will ignore
The bull headed idiot goes on, determined

My legs have given now and I sit a heap of heavy meat and brittle bone
A facade of watery muscle that covers my rusted joints
My wrinkles and my face that is melting
My tied together arms that hang by strings
The little black leather, that adorns my arthritic knuckles
My blood patterns the canvas of grey, trickling forth, a muddy maroon pollock of my plasma
I swim

The lights overhead blind me constantly
I’m alone here but at least they want for me
Unlike the real world and it’s long hallways and longer lists
Queues endless, people disappointed, scorns and handshakes
Oh I must swim

My lungs are heavy again despite my rest, I balance on my hind legs
And I feel my heart racing faster and faster, I raise my hands to my face, ready for trauma
Flashing neons fly across my vision and I can no longer stand
My body slouches forward and I hit that familiar grey canvas with my face
The roar of the crowd grows and I close my eyes for comfort

The horns on my head have felt never heavier
My head pinned to the ground by an all too familiar foot
There’s a sharp pain between my shoulders
And my deep black eyes sit in their pockets
The roar of the crowd fades away