I could not be more proud of my team. They fought hard....and battled to the end. First meet, first kill. For there are many more to come as we continue marching up this steep and muddy hill. Goals were reached while PR's were slaughtered, celebrating not only victory.....but the successful escape from the ongoing temptation of the Devil In A Red Dress. American Open bound we walk side by side, hand in hand, in numbers we are strong, individually we are warriors. Our dreams stay in focus as our heads rise high. This feeling....this smokey aftermath....this blood on our hands and the pride in our heart, is a reminder of why we fight everyday in a gym of hurt, sore, and the ongoing backlash of what society on the outside has labeled us as......freaks. For freaks we are! And proud we stand! Every weightlifter must raise their hand to announce to the world their plan! Gold medals is why.....while victory within lays at peace....a feeling and an understanding we never understood before entering this sport, nor felt. A gasp of air you breath, as your view on the podium looks wide and far, magnificent and breath taking. For once the green monster is allowed to stand.....and stand tall you shall. Soak it in while remembering the feeling before training drowns you once again, deep under water where the darkness becomes home, pain becomes comfort, and the ground you see draws blood from your teeth. This is why......this is why we train......for the feeling of medal around our neck, and a single individual goal being reached. Next time training becomes hell for hell it is.....remember the view that once looked over the world as the sun raised warming your face while shinning its light on a knight of battle. When the smoke settles is when our site is so clear. High on top lays a medal that makes us shed a tear, reach for the stars young athletes......for your journey has just begun. We will win and lose many battles.....but the war is ours!
Rabbit - 100kg - 125kg - Gold (Qualified for AO)
Jessica North 73kg - 90kg - Gold
Dallas Hunter 120kg - 146kg - Gold (Qualified for AO)
Jessica Michie 67kg - 80kg - Silver (Qualified for AO)
Chris Amenta - 111kg - 144kg - 4th Place (PR snatch - C&J- Total)
His walk was staggered, and his limp was obvious. His shoes were ragged, while his laces ran free, bouncing from side to side with every heavy step he took throughout the cold evening city than ran pity amongst him. Looks of sorrow followed with looks of disgust. Looks of shun from head to toe, as a dirty beanie meant homeless to those who grabbed their kids to gain space from the man who had fallen into the cracks of life. October leaves dance around his feet on this windy cold day. His eyes closed as his beard tilted up, facing the cloudy murky sky with a pause from the long walk. His beard red, his eyebrows brown, his shirt dirty white, as the deep stretched out V-neck exposed the bruises on his chest, and the cuts on his neck. Pale white skin from a lack of sun.....pockets inside out for money is gone. His grey sweats that fit tight around the legs feel comfortable and warm on legs that dig deep in mud. Hair salon shops laugh, while kids out of a candy store play tag. Grocery carts rattle as business folks chatter. The sounds of laughing make his eyes drop low like his V. Memories of a time where life was smooth, an easy smile made a comfortable mood. Now a smile comes once a full moon, as the dark casts a light that leaves too soon. The city is alive while this man is dead. His sweats hang low and saggy around his waste from the absence of his drawstring that once tied tight and high, for now he must grab the front to keep them up and on.....a jail house walk while singing a jail house song. The red hair that covers his forearms cuts like a thorn, as his non-hydrated body pleads for water, only to be given coffee. One more cup of coffee and the body might fall. Dry up and cast a shadow amongst the concrete wall, leaning and breathing for life as others watch him fall. No one cares, for an outcast he is, a street bum that can't find his way in a maze of city streets, lost in a world of white sheep. Lost to be never found, addicted to drugs and robbery he must....for this man is the leach of the world and must....must be crushed.
Dry blood sleeps upon his knuckles of white, finding a home where consistency lives...makes even blood sleep tight. His long red beard dry and tangled, matted and fragile. High to his eyes and low on his neck, his beard is a mask that hides who he was, barring the boy he has left behind. The beard is a warrior's cape that represents independence. The beard is an expression of man hood, fight hood, a new path hood. A drop the boy off and grow a pair hood. His beard is a shield of fire that keeps white sheep away from its heat and mass, strength and power, a V-neck of dirty sweat mixed with bloody knuckles that string painfully in the shower. His bold beard that screams for water keeps the city street herd away.....as he gets close to his destination from the far away place he started.
His masterful beard looks more beat up than him, but what some don't see is the strength within...under what the skin hides....some don't see, that the inside is where the beard grows, starts, and blossoms. The roots of where we started is where our strength is born. Forgetting our past and what lies beneath... is the down fall of so many that now lay dead in these city streets. His legs might be weak on the outside, but strong like bull beneath. This broke homeless looking bum keeps walking....one step at a time. Every step counts, no matter how he truly feels. The devil in a red dress awaits with open arms around each turn, as a young lady working at a bank firm firmly grabs his hand giving him a chance with change....to them he is weak.....weak and wounded......
The red bearded man of an awful smell and lips of dry, stumbles into the gym with a limp of pride. He slaps the hands of many as home he is......he grabs the bar with knuckles of pain....for it is time for weightlifting practice......once again.
The white glaze that once circled her brown eyes now lays in a bath of blood, as a shot of warmth meets the cold outside air. Steam moves like fog around the icy mountains that stagger her on point journey where land meets water. Throughout her tunnel vision......each step will soon push her closer to feeling alive, once the blood from her eyes falls fast upon her moving feet. As the dragon flying above her breathes fire amongst the now charcoal black trees..... she adds another taste of blood for the rush of bravery and balance. Blood so heavy her eyelids droop, low like the bank she walks to, heavy and deep like her past. Evil pulled them down to see what lies within the eyes that look out, to figure out how someone so fragile can become so strong. The black dots that never seem to blink have now been infected with the blood she has drawn so heavy. A shot of reality to help with reality. A shot of warm meeting cold to create some sort of fucken balance that this life has given her. Her hands ice cold as the rocks of gravel under her feet roll with crunch as the path she takes leads her to the destination of her choosing. With every step a drop of blood falls, warming her with a coat of white as her skin turns ghost from the loss of blood. The evening turns dark like her soul, as the ice around her melts from her warmth. She gives off a certain vibe that makes the knees from others crumble and grow weak. Strong with a taste of bold, some can't seem to handle her power, some can't seem to swallow her misery, her pain.... her faults. Some can't seem to handle what truth she holds. The smell of sharp, the after taste of regret. She is you.... the direction of love, real and never forgotten, for some stay hidden away from the bank she walks toward.
A cold night chills the plants and trees that bend like ballet dancers, falling and swinging like a play that asks for her approval. For claps are unseen, for the blood has drawn shade over the already black holes that sink into her head. A dark roast of fire burns her stomach with every step, closer and closer she walks.... faster and faster her heart pumps, moving her feet at a steady pace over the frozen hills and green landscape she calls necessary. Fight within released from the hell outside makes the skin turn from the reader to her, as she screams to the moon while digging her long nails into her palms.... a grip so tight only blood could be drawn. For blood is what makes any shot swirl and scream, come alive and dream, to walk the night with a dream in mind, to get closer to this reality becomes a responsibility that weighs heavy in her hand. As her mind turns, the mixture of both energy meeting energy rattles a heavy blend of storm and rain, wet as the melting rocks that slowly turn into her brown eyed pain. Becoming a part of myself, you the reader whoever mixes two toxins of the some sort will figure, a storm of some sort will violently rain down upon the ones who fucked us. Giving all hell to capture, for freedom within is without blood from within. She bleeds the shot of her life which makes mine spike with fierce revenge, raining hell on those who struck me down, for cuts on my back keep me from drowning in hell. My own scars are what keeps me curing the ones of others. I will cut my skin deep with the nails I have grown, so others can't. She adds an extra shot, so they can't.
She met her edge, as the water met her lips. Red like her eyes.... red like the sea she looks over. Home bound, and ready to live under a liquid layer where fear cannot reach. Her eyes now closed, as her toes met the fall, while her heels stayed steady on the bank of ice and rock. Still cold, still night, for she felt warmth as the shot of confidence met her that night.....she then took a deep breath.....
"Your name is strong, you must kill it before they kill you". - unknown
What a morning it is. Crisp cold monster after a tall hot coffee. One dripping with sweat warming the soul with ease and serenity.....while the other burns the throat from its ice cold daggers when chugged at a fast pace. ah yes......motivation rings throughout my ears, as the the sound of white buzzers fill the gym and the cracking of an almost broken bar spins closer to meeting the graveyard of steel and dust. Miss brown eyes dances on my right shoulder whispering songs of sex and passion......while the monster on the left tells cold stories of my past, guiding my anger out with a middle finger and a chair thrown to its death. Fuck you chair, fuck you world. I wear a gold grill placed on my teeth to smile at the ones who once kicked dirt upon my dreams....who laughed at my potential.....and who doubted my every move. A smile of gold that tells a story of a grid that lead me here....with you. A half cracked smile that once lived homeless with broke. I smile of clean to say no more to the Crystal smoke that once filled my lungs with a high that makes sense why so many would turn in everything for another taste. The problem with meth is that it's just that good.....I'm not going to lie. But....the best thing about the gym life society is that it's even that much better. Gym life for life as we drink coffee side by side. Hand in hand, filling our stomach with swords and weapons, ammo and shields, attacking the society that we once fell capture to. Society....you will now feel the wrath of my bar, as an earthquake will take you all down to the cracks of hell and into the dark where we the Orchestra call home.
Another coffee.....this time mixed with monster for todays openers. A hit and quit type day. Gearing for a meet this saturday. Gearing up for the small glimpse of light before being dragged back down. LETS BREATHE! This my friend is what a meet is....the surface of the water where our heads meet the sun! Reach and grab, hold steady and then stab! Dig your knife deep into the belly of the beast for a feast with the ones who fight in the gym you call home. Once alone.....now you are a part of a mafia that stretches from this blog to the ones breaking blood vessels to watch you stand. Yell, "Mother fuckers!" We alone are weak, for numbers make us strong. As each bars slams, the offices across the street gather canned food, as all the prisoners to money and retirement 4 1 k's panic. Every bar that is broke the trainers at planet fitness gather their weak-minded sheep under ground for fear of.......us. For fear of higher standards, and morals that fall from the ski the size of beach balls, crashing upon car windows and shattering "fuel economy cars". I work hard to put gas in a car. I don't need or care if a car gets great gas milage. I drive fast n furious, loud and bold, in a car that eats gas like I eat sheep.
This morning I am writing in the front office next to others, in a room of sun and smiles....maybe this is why the skeletons are in such a good mood, positive, and outgoing. My dark office with a flicker of light can make our skeletons draw dark and painful......which I do truly love. I love the dark. I love pain.....why? Maybe why is not the right question. Maybe why not is the right thought process. Why is it frowned upon to feel safe in the dark? To feel pain from the past? Embracing our weakness? Atmosphere is everything. Salute.
Naked I stand.......tiger blood I drink. White sheep skinned fur hangs from the back of my neck, falling like a cape and dragging against the muddy ground behind me. I stand tall and sharp, my head turned to the side like my sword....jagged and on point, down and in, ready and steady. Blood runs down my face as I close my black eyes and drink, drink what has given me great success....and even more failure. My double edge sword cuts my hand while I spin my blade around and around, taking out the skin from my palms like a grapefruit. A rhythm warrior, only left with a steady rhythm of nightmares. Nightmares that keep this fearless man in fear, while dreams stream out, long and cold under a bridge where water runs under, while others walk over. Tiger blood cuts tallies from the point of his blade into the pierce of his skin, one by one men have taken their last breath, as a cut from their skin now lays at rest on his. This blood called tiger makes men do extreme acts of good or bad.......how you use this curse is up to you, the reader. This blog is about the man who gave you and I this curse. A blog about a man who came about tiger blood and what he did with it. This blog is about you and me.
His home is made up of other's abandoned problems, left for dead skeletons, and forgotten relationships. He sleeps on rocks that have been beaten by the tide, as the sand from the wash of others builds walls high and strong under his bridge of protection and capture. The stream runs red with blood, as the bridge above marches with new hopes and dreams, as the warrior underneath battles demons left behind from the white sheep above. Drinking the blood from dead skeletons gave him the strength beyond anything anyone has seen. The strength to swing his sword violently through the guts of the ones above. The naked warrior promised with every drink from the red stream, that he would take vengeance on those weak minded souls who left their own skeletons to die and rot, turn sour and be forgotten......he would take his sword and bounty those very people who gave him the curse he carried inside of him......the curse of extreme emotion. Heads fell to the ground with each swing of his sword, rolling heads were then thrown to the side for bears and birds. His rusted sword had to cut at times rather than slice, for the past of the ones he was killing made his swing heavy and his sword dull from left in the rain emotions. Tiger blood pumped through this warrior's body so hard that he at times would scream at the headless bodies before ripping their hearts out and drinking the dripping blood that was left, trying to move like traffic in New York. He drank blood and became strong, he drank the blood from those who didn't know how to use the blood they had. He opened his mouth and began then to eat their bones. One by one he slaughtered every single person who walked over the bridge above his home, drinking blood to gain endurance, and eating their bones to build strength. His face was covered in blood splatter and spaghetti looking guts. His knee would meet the ground as his hand would enter their chest, ripping out everything that once laid like a puzzle.....complicated but perfect.....now complex and scattered. Hundreds dead, that murdered a hundred themselves.....he was finally feeling good about himself. He felt he was doing right.....was he? I have no idea....I'm just telling the story of the man who once took bounty on those who drew blood to a stream that he drank out of. Blood from skeletons he adopted and took in....literally. Skeletons who gave him strength and nightmares. I am telling you a story of the man who killed hundreds......and saved hundreds.
5,000 years ago, this warrior under the bridge of red, made love to a woman a few years later.......a woman that was immediately infected by this curse. She soon became the first female hunter all the tribes had ever seen. She killed more animals than all the male hunters combined. She somehow felt she had the strength of a million people.......what she didn't know.......is she had the strength of a million skeletons.
You the reader......let me introduce our long lost relatives.
His head hanged low, as the folds of his Asian eye lids drew shade over his regret. Two eyes that have seen hell, as abandonment and pain pump through his veins as he sits on the white crinkled paper in a world of white and a smell of death. A time and place where everything stops, and the world focuses in on a single man. A man that is a master of capture, a slave owner of skeletons, and a warden of the biggest death row prison known to mankind. A man that turns the other way, for the pain burns when confronted. A man that has experienced heaven......only to live in hell. Skin beaten, hands clammy. A worried look comes over a man that never looks worried. For worried is an emotion never shown nor confronted. Sad is something too close, for looking back hurts the most. Walk fast, at times run, Bonny and Clyde himself and his gun. Never get caught is a philosophy that has caught up. Now silence takes over, reality knocks. His head of knowledge and mastery turns to the side as his eyes continue to lay low, almost as if he is being protected.......safe from what lies in front of him. Bonny has been caught, and now fear meets Clyde. My father of strong, must now meet his weakness......his own skeletons.
A small tint of orange met his black boots as the doctor's office drew dark. The only light coming from the bottom of the closet door that flickered up his legs.....leaving his face barely lit from the reflection of the orange lake below his feet. He felt better in the dark.....he always has. Years of excuses, has finally run out, as the closet door started to shake. The banging sound of bone to wood made his hands bury his face for comfort, as the reality started to enter through the closet cracks. The skeletons wanted their freedom, the skeletons needed him to become free. Mad at himself......mad at the world. His father passing makes his gut turn. Pain that makes him want to throw up, and at times......escape. An older daughter that leaves him breathless at night, turns his pillow into a clenched blanket of might. Someone to talk to he should, but his skin is stubborn, while his skeletons suffer. He will never be free, unless he enters the Orchestra.
His beat up body and unhealthy lifestyle made it hard to get off the bed. The white doctor's sheet crinkled as his left hand pushed against his left knee to get up. He stood outside of the door now quiet. His breathing became fast, as his heart raced like his life. He reached out his hand and turned the knob. The door opened with ease, almost as if someone pushed from the inside. His whole body was covered in a glow of orange. The warmth of the light made his breathing calm, and his eyes open wider. His skin looked brighter as his body became lighter. Already a sense of relief...for just entering his past was a tough step. A skeleton dressed in red with gold cuff links asked for his ticket. The skeleton's red locomotive looking hat hung off to the side, shading one side of his face. His eyes were hollow for my father's eyes were his. Sight connected with sight, heart beat to heart beat, emotion to emotion they were more connected than the skeleton's bones to joints. One in the same......my father never understood this.....for my father is his worst skeleton. The ticket ripped as the bony usher drew his arm out to the side with a small smile and a tilt of the skull, guiding and welcoming my father to the 5 story hall filled with endless rows of seats looking down upon the empty black stage. His hand laid out flat in the air, feeling each seat as he walked in wonder. One of those walks where your eyes and thoughts are so far gone, that how he knew where to walk was amazing. His slow but long stride moved my father up the first batch of stairs to the second story balcony. He turned down each isle keeping his eyes located on the old wood stage in front of him. His feet sticky to the floor each time he took a step. The sound was as if someone was ripping tape. The ground was filled with salt....salt from every tear he ever drew. Salt from every person he hurt and who hurt him. Salt from abandonment, loss, happiness and the biggest one of all.....regret.
While still keeping his head forward and eyes glued to the stage, he blindly felt the arm rest with his left hand, and then sat down in the very back row on the second story. So far back.....he was almost hidden. Hidden from from what he had been hiding from his whole life. A big deep breath made his black v-neck shirt move up then down. His hands knocked against the arm rest as if he was singing a song. His head now rotated side to side, then up and down in a nervous scurry all around the huge auditorium. Excited for how far he has gone, but in fear for what lies ahead. At least one hundred skeletons from every angle of the stage slowly walked out to the stage each holding a different instrument. The skeletons were dressed in all black.....black like my dad's suits in the 90's. Black like the nights filled with smoke and snow. Black like the sports cars he used to drive when he was once rich. Black like the up all night nightmares. Black like the circles around his eyes, black like ashes from his burnt relationships. The skeletons took their place with such ease. No applause.....for there was no one else to watch my father. There was no one in the audience to watch my father play from the second row balcony. His fingers become stiff.....while his head tilted to the side. His v-neck turned into a tux, while his black circles slowly vanished from his face. And then it happened.......he started to play! The Orchestra of skeletons played loudly with him! The ground filled with salt as my father cried while the violin strings sung. His body now moving with rhythm. Side to side, his body moved while his eyes swayed violently with every stroke of his arm. Blood ran down his nose from playing so hard. The sounds of the violin was crying with pain and emotion. The strings were screaming as his eyes now laid closed and his eyebrows danced above his eyes. The skeletons on the stage were trying to keep up with him, but falling short from the speed and violence my father was playing with. The skeletons were smiling at each other as salt water began to creep up their white bony legs. At this pace they would all soon drown from my father's tears. The water was now up the the skeleton's necks. They raised their instruments high above the water to continue the song of my father's life. They played with passion. They played with joy and pride. As my father did the same.
The song stopped.......the Orchestra went dead quiet. My father's breathing was fast. His eyes slowly opened to an empty stage. The sweat was falling fast down his forehead stinging his eyes. He stood with weakness from the journey he just experienced. You could hear a pin drop from the silence that was surrounding him. Silence that usually haunted him....now gave him a sense of peace. He felt different, he felt light, he felt......well.....good. He made his way to the closet door that led him to this world he hasn't yet figured out, but at the same time completely understands. He opened the closet door to find all of his skeletons waiting for him on the other side. Hundreds packed into the doctor's office, all smiling from gaining their freedom, and seeing my dad gain his as well.
Let your skeletons from your past guide you to the future of tomorrow.
I love you, Dad. I am so glad we have rebuilt our relationship even bigger and better than before. Today is day one of the rest of our lives. I am glad my skeletons have met yours.
Welcome Father.........to The Dark Orchestra. 2016 & beyond
