Brass Knuckles

To know what true strength really is
you have to first be broken,
feel your self-esteem abandon you without a warning
like sugar in a cup of aggressive coffee.
The courage you felt in your heart,
the confidence you finally built and mastered so boldly,
this all has to be stripped from your soul so you'll know
just how vulnerable the grounds you walk on are
among the infinite acres of strength.
You will run and run
believing you'll never see the end of the running trail to stop,
the burning in your legs and thighs
will only be sore in the morning and make you want to give up forever.
Before learning the bold equilibrium of strength
you have to travel to where the escaped black slave in dirty white rags
hangs from a noose with welps on his bare back dead in a tree.
You have to understand that you could've taken his place,
that he was only human
to have the strength to run for his life with dreams
and hope to give him a chance of surviving.
Before knowing strength as the most powerful feeling internally
you have to know vulnerability as its equal.
You have to awake with vulnerability.
You have to think with your heart on your sleeve
until it is tangled with veins of vulnerability
and you feel the pain of the forming blood clot.
Then only will you realize that strength is worth fighting for,
only strength will make you live
and lets you rise to go for a daily run and not quit once you're out of breath,
only strength will hold out its hand
and help you up when you fall hard and say
This is survival of the fittest so get up, it is I that can only save you,
and then follows you to the ends of the earth
like the crazed love of your life.