Facing Giants

I’m enamored by the fear
It’s what brings me close to here, to the place
where I can’t recognize my face but
am able to sustain that
I can feel

something

And when the time draws nigh
for me to stand straight, eye to eye
with the imp whose caused
my cowardice
My lack of strength broadens
and puffs up my chest

with air

Easily deflated but I fake it till I
make it because where I stand, eyes aglow,
fist clenched hands
I will show no mercy, my reflection
not myself so I can be whomever I choose
And that choice supplies a
confidence that I

am strong

Or not, because after all its fight or flight,
and with all wrongs there are all rights,
but it takes might to admit that I am weak
yet in the face of confrontation, I’ve placed myself
inside my fear, perfectly not myself but
everything in me and that has been
because of that

I win

Blow

He listened to the stifled cries
of the husky gent in the stall next door
before breathing in a line of white once more
“Toughen up,” he grunted towards the stranger
holed up on the porcelain hole
He gave a courageous kick to the shared wall
courage only mustered with the help of his
powdered friend

and then

He took to the bar and demanded the cheapest beer
“because they taste better,” while eyeing down
the pink sweater swerving her hips to the beat
on the makeshift dance floor
He gulped down his beverage and made his way over
to the pink sweater and her friend
slipped his hand to her backside, rimming the edge of
her skirt
“A little feel won’t hurt,” he scowled, not noticing the
‘tough guy’  from the bathroom noticing him
Her discomfort smudged across her face in the race to
move away
A tap on the shoulder made him turn with a hiss
where his left cheek met the bundled knuckles of tough guys left fist

and there he laid
plastered to the floor
dreaming of breathing in a line of white once more.