Tender Fists

The other night

I had a fight

With a small Asian girl

She is my friend

We were at another friend's house

After the works Christmas party

The dogma of Rum was running

Through my system with a cult like determination

The mad prophet Captain Morgan at the helm

Driving me head first into the abyss

Where pain and joy whispered with one voice.

The official party had come to a halt at 11:30

The oppression of the corporate hierarchy

Was dispensed with as vapid balding managers

And vacuous  babbling drone colleagues

Were left in the wake of the lively few

We flew to Putney, weaving through the lights of the city

Fuelled by the mere ecstasy of Dionysus  

Suspended by each others garbled, but infinite wisdom

I put on someone’s hat, people said I looked good

They were wrong, I saw the pictures

We stumbled down pathways,

Looked up at many eyed buildings

Down at foreign feet, and scuffed pavements

Until a door opened

And in we fell

When we got into the flat

I remember thinking it was good to be inside

We drank more and laughed

Some smoked, some shouted

There was music playing

A lot of it I can’t remember

Someone kicked over a drink

The night dissolved

Fizzing and bubbling

Smudging

Sound undulated beneath

The swaying hum of our heads

About 3am, filled with a hollow need for destruction, 

I singled out my Asian friend

And said to her, ‘hit me’

I knew only she would do it

She had a glint in her eye

And a clench in her fist

She forcefully thumped my left arm

Purposefully and aggressively

Then it began

Others present later referred to events

As the ‘brawl’

Fists flew, we didn’t hold back

And that was our genius

True friendship

Our hands passed through

Tenderness and came out the other side of love

Our knuckles bounced off each other

Leaving a satisfying dent on the night

And a cavity in the restraint of the audience

Between us wasn’t a disparity between size

And strength

But a radical loss of self

A beyond, we both experienced as one being

Bang, bang, the fists came down

We tangled

Twisted

Cavorted

She hit me hard in the face

I went down

She fell on top of me

I clamped my legs around her

We both lay, looking into each other’s eyes

An unbearable intensity

Buzzing in the hollowness of our addled heads

‘I love you’

‘I love you’

I stroked her face

We talked of our potential

The thrill of total release

The fear

The ecstasy of violence

The danger

The want to melt into oblivion

Then we got up

And went to talk

To other people