Alone. But not isolated.
I am in my happy place
above the music in my ears I can hear only the iron plates clang together.
Along the dumbbell rack are lean twenty somethings
mindlessly pumping blood into their biceps
staring into the mirror
like brain dead bovine
their gaze is stolen only by women in painted- on leggings
a staple in every gym.
By myself in a room full of people
I feel only displacement.
I am not one of these.
I am not here to work out
Or look into the vanity mirror.
I am here to train.
To pick heavy **** off the ground and put it back down.
To make my muscles scream
To mutilate myself, just like yesterday
just like tomorrow
And the day after
With calloused hands gripping the freezing bar
there is no thought but understanding…
You will put this weight across your back. and squat your *** down to the floor.
Six reps.
Or you will die trying.
You will not know failure or defeat because you will be dead.
The second before there is only one thought:
No retreat. No surrender.
Into the abyss.
So that next year the weight might be thirty pounds heavier if I’m lucky.
A little bigger, a little stronger, a little faster.
So that in an hour I can stumble out, depleted
and say “Today I went to war with myself, and the other guy lost”
He didn’t just lose.
I put my heel on his windpipe as he choked for air
and watched the light drain from his eyes as he clawed at my shins.
A victory so sweet it is worth the sleepless nights and the countless tabs of ibuprofen.
Because the ache in my muscles comes close to ******.
Because this musty, stale dungeon is the closest I will ever get to heaven.