I pull my punches,
Sparring with anyone brave enough –
To challenge me.
Dancing in faux aggression.
Playing at predator,
To help you hone your kicks.
I pull my punches,
Until I don’t.
Asked,
To not hold back.
The beast,
Monster,
Demon,
I used to be.
Killer instincts,
Seething.
Moving at angles,
Left or right,
Up or down.
Cackling madly at the thrill,
Of war.
Passions held high!
Bone on bone.
Hands clasped,
In contests of strength.
Grins all around.
I love it most,
When the smallest of them challenge me.
Admiring such courage,
Bravery enough –
To stand tall before me.
David or Goliath.
There’s no art,
To war.
Only the logic of suffering.
How to grind enemies to dust,
Shattering their resolve –
So they know better,
In tattered existences,
Than to challenge former warlords.
Poet or not.
Cerebral combat,
Is just as vaunted.
Handicapping myself with smoke,
To slow myself down.
To improve,
An already legendary patience.
To lower bars for challengers,
Seeing if they deserve my best.
Vapor clouds roiling from my nostrils,
Grinning all the same.
It may be;
One of my greatest sins.
One I wear proudly.
Knowing the darkness behind it.
These morbid truths.
Brutal Calculus.
Rolling the dice,
Seeking dopamine.
Hunting belongings,
I never had.
Cryptids are supposed to be:
Aloof from humans,
Hiding as the black shadows,
Dancing just at the edge of your vision.
You know the ones.
Gone the moment you turn to look.
Lying here,
Between dimensions,
Reality slipping –
Through our fingers.
Like sand draining,
From a hundred thousand,
Broken hourglasses.
Drowning,
All by ourselves,
Beneath the sands of time.
Do you think men,
Or creatures such as I,
Haven’t played witness?
Watched kingdoms fall –
Ozymandias’ ruins left to molder.
Devoured the words,
Of dead men or women.
Prototypes of the cryptid,
I’d grow to be.
Fight me.
Love me.
Romance me.
Win.
Want nothing more than to lose,
Graciously playing out the heel turn,
In my finest performances.
Allowing you to rise to glory,
Insofar as you were worthy.
Pure of heart,
Cleverest of the clever.
Hearts so full of light,
They expose me for what I am,
Even when I’m playing at being;
The Most Terrifying Thing In The Dark.
Spotlight’s on you,
Kid.
I played my prime.
Nowadays I prefer playing guru,
For those worthy of my talents.
Fists up,
Wide stance.
Eyes on target.
Heart & soul ablaze.
Come at me any way you like,
Through fist knuckle,
Art,
Or words.
A dozen other avenues,
As I’m hungry for skillsets.
Adding to my repertoire,
This hidden toolbox –
Kept in my twisted,
Warped version of a mind palace.
Broken eidetics,
Remembering moments –
Facts,
Rather than photographing pages.
My talents,
Are hidden.
Usually under wraps,
Until needed.
Playing fools,
Ignorant to greater worlds.
Helps one blend into the backgrounds,
Of humanity.
I refuse.
Those were the days of old.
Now,
Let us run riot,
Through the streets of civilization.
I’ll show you growth at all costs.
Come with me.
Pulling My Punches.
