This little kid used to lie in bed at night and round off infinity. He did it because he knew that in 12 hours, he'd be getting punched and kicked and thrown to the ground and all he wanted to do was cry, but he'd be damned if he'd let those fuckers see him cry. He'd just pretend. He was a wrestler, he was an actor, he was a super hero. He wasn't him. And he grew up and he never really stopped pretending, always letting an exaggeration get bigger and bigger. It was the only way he knew to get by, to be honest. Because he learned how to stare a fist right in his face and how to roll with it and how to fall the right way and how to laugh about it. Pain became really the only person who never let him down.

Sometimes, the little kid thought aliens were coming. This frightened him to the point where he could not sleep. He'd wake up his whole family screaming and shaking. But the truth was, he subverted his fears. He worried about nuclear war. Or the sun going cold. He stopped caring about his face being pushed into asphalt. It all became a game. So when he got old, the fact that his body was nothing but a bag that held his brain was not lost on him. He started finding new and better ways to tear it apart, all because, well, it was all he knew.

The boy who couldn't say how he felt became the man who didn't want anyone to know. And there have not really been all that many people who have seen him cry. He despises that. He hates when people get to know him. He doesn't even tell people his birthday. Because at the heart of it all, he wanted love but figured that if he told anyone, they'd just kick him in the teeth again. So he just got to liking it.

Photo - N
Words - S