Tonight...

No pithy phrases...

No poetic flurry..

Just another dose of reality

This one didn't hit as hard.  It's only sting was a deep disappointment.  One I had been waiting for but secretly hoped would never happen but it was only a matter of time. 

When one lives as much as I have, you see patterns within the construct of the human soul.  You know when X takes place...Z is just around the corner and sometimes you hope beyond hope that Z will hit lightly but when it hits hard, it does irreparable damage.  It's like watching a boxing match.  Your fighter gets knocked out in the first few seconds and the way he goes down makes you turn away.  All that smack talk.  All that bluster.  All that training didn't mean shit in the end.  He did the one thing he knew he should never do.  He ran in heart first only to be met by the knock-out blow to the head.  Humans make "foolish" decisions all the time and his exuberance to get back in the ring was his biggest mistake.  He didn't study the fighters.  He didn't feel out the terrain.  He chose to fight exactly the way he did in his last bout only to land flat on his back.  This is your soul-friend.  You feel it as he does.  

Now, in the ambulance on his way to the hospital, he opens his eyes and sees me there.  He expects "I told you so".  He expects a play by play of his error.  I say nothing.  I just let him know that it gets better.  It's time to rest now.  That's who I am.  You see he never told me he was entering the ring again but I knew.  I saw it happen and said nothing until he thought it right to tell me.  Now that he has, it is my time to be his corner man.  I've been in the ring just enough times to know what will happen and how bad it hurts to be wrong.  I've been hit with the same blow by the same mistake.  

A blow I fear I will never recover from.

I suddenly open my eyes to find myself sitting in the stands waiting for the fighters to enter the ring.  Maybe the outcome will be different.  Maybe she will prove me wrong.  In either case...I'll be right by her side till the end...

Shit...it's what friends do...

~Apollo