Top Hat

My ass meets my heels as my knees meet my chin.  My mechanical top hat has seemed to fall back from the roof above my head closing in.  A chain stationed at the hips rattles its way up to the weightlifter's elbows, only to meet a crossroad of different levers and directions.  Everything is connected.  My finger connects to the dirt below my bottom position as I draw lines and circles reflecting past memories and future ideas.  Sick with tea, cold from the fever.  When I am sick the weightlifter is sick as well. A run of bad luck runs a line around my body as to say stay away.  A part of the sport that's not talked about.  Life affects sport and sport affects life.  My fort of blankets that stretches from one end of the living room the the other, keeps me hidden from anymore back pains or illnesses that seem to have a hit on my head.  The dirt below my feet has turned into murky bubbly mud from the tea that has fallen from my cup from swaying side to side, while still being hunched over in this ever so low bottom position.  The sheets above my head flap as I forgot to close one of the windows outside the fort.  Cold wind sneaks through the red glow from the blankets around me.  Falling like opera curtains as the chattered whispers overflow the room in preparation for the show.  Top hats and long smokes, glasses with no frames, and mustaches that look like the line of bar path in a weightlifting instructional video.  Some, more vertical than others, and some so extreme it looks as if a child with a crayon had a go at them.  An odd time in my life, a stuck time that has stopped the clocks and erupted more thoughts than I knew I even had.  Thoughts like sand slipping through your hands. There then gone.  A feeling of whole, followed by a feeling of empty.  A call to an old friend across the world for a midnight chat leads to a dial tone of "this number is no longer in use, please hang up and try again". This is how I feel.  

Me.....popular.....no my friend.  I am one of the loneliness people you know.  Old travel receipts lay at my feet, while plane stubs have made a permanent home in my wallet of crinkled white papers and scattered change that always makes it extremely hard to close while trying to slide in my back pocket.  Pictures and lovely memories of PR's and bar slamming keep me company in my fort of red.  Faces appear and fade.  Glossy memories make it hard to sleep as I scroll down and up my phone looking for someone to call.  Always leading me to the same place as always....a smoke outside with a hot coffee to keep my mind sharp and intact.  Facebook friends I don't know, while chatting with friends on twitter I have never met nor scene before.  "Come alive" I scream!  Come alive and let's shoot some pool, break balls, and get in trouble.  Let's run from the cops.  Let's push over every shelf in Walmart telling them to start treating their animals better.  Let me raise this mechanical top hat high and enter a whole new experience outside of this red blanket glow that forces me into a fantastic bottom position.  I am sick from this bad back and living room fort I scurry under after a long weekend.  

A weightlifter body moves from chains and levers that pull and pry, squeak and chatter.  Bone against bone as we catch the weight in the whole, stretching the chain tight, as your face makes odd emotions from the small razor thin strings that attach to your pores.  A rusty chain means under recovery, or too much time away from operation top hat. The higher the top hat, the stronger you will be.   The top hat holds the engine underneath its black leather shell, producing all of the levers to work as one.  This is why all of the great weightlifters have tall hats, hats that hold wisdom, experience, and knowledge.  Or your top hat can be broken like mine.  Broken from injury.  Everything must move together with no hitches.  A rhythm lifter has mastered the art of body, bar awareness.  One who has done the movements over and over until they become second nature.  If wind passes your ears on the pull, and you are hanging onto the bar like a kid on a roller coaster, then you have mastered your style of technique.  All of your levers and strings now sound like an orchestra of beauty.  This my friends takes time.  This my friends takes many nights under a tree fort of red.  This my friends is more bad days than good, more bomb outs than wins.  This my friends is a lifestyle of hell.  

 Where I'm at now is where I chose to be.  These living room forts are at times necessary.  Dark days are like misses, they happen, and there is such a thing as a good miss, and good dark days.  I sit in this red fort over dirt, passing my finger back and forth while understanding and gathering thoughts on what it takes to succeed.  I have been here before, understanding the darkest, coldest nights always bring the warmest, brightest days ahead.  Sometimes you have to take three steps back, to take 20 steps forward.  Salute.  

White Light 2016