“The Fight is Fixed”
The ropes creak when I lean into them.
They already know my weight.
Across from me—
that.
No name, no face,
just something that has decided
this ring belongs to it.
I step forward anyway.
The bell doesn’t matter.
Nothing official matters.
This fight was scheduled before I agreed to it,
before I knew there even was a ring.
I can feel the outcome
like a verdict folded in my pocket,
paper worn soft at the creases
from being opened too many times in my head.
Loss.
Already written.
The only question—
how long I can pretend
it isn’t.
I throw the first punch
out of habit more than hope.
It lands on nothing
that knows how to hurt.
That answers,
not with anger,
not with speed,
but with certainty.
A slow, crushing presence—
like gravity tightening its grip,
like the room deciding to get smaller
and not asking my permission.
I give ground.
Then take it back.
Then lose it again.
There’s no rhythm to learn,
no weakness to find.
You can’t outthink something
that doesn’t think.
You can’t outfight something
that doesn’t need to win—
only to continue.
I touch my head without meaning to.
Two places where they opened me up,
tried to carve space back into me.
Repairs between rounds
in a fight with no rounds.
I was stitched back together
to stand here again,
to keep answering a bell
that never stops ringing.
People outside the ropes
talk about time
like it’s a strategy.
Months.
Years, if you’re lucky.
Numbers stacked like combinations
I’m supposed to memorize.
But time isn’t something I can throw.
It’s something being taken,
inch by inch,
breath by breath,
like the canvas being pulled
out from under my feet
so slowly
I’m expected not to notice.
I swing harder now.
Not because it matters,
but because stopping
would feel like agreeing.
Each punch is defiance,
even when it passes straight through
what cannot be struck.
I try to move.
My legs answer—
but slower.
Always a fraction slower.
That’s how it wins.
Not with a single blow,
not with spectacle,
but with erosion.
A wearing down
so complete
that collapse begins to feel
like rest.
I wonder—
will it be sudden?
A clean, final strike
I never see coming—
lights out mid-motion,
the body forgetting how to stand
before the mind has time to object?
Or will it be drawn out—
a long, uneven staggering,
each step a negotiation,
each breath a small argument
I lose more often than I win?
Distance or early end.
Those are the only mysteries left.
Not if.
Never if.
I keep my guard up
out of instinct,
though there’s nothing to block.
I keep my stance
though balance is becoming
a rumor.
I keep fighting
because the alternative
is to lie down
before I’m made to.
And I’m not ready
to help it.
There’s a moment—
small, almost nothing—
where I realize
this isn’t about victory,
or dignity,
or even meaning.
It’s simpler.
I am here.
It is here.
And until one of us
isn’t—
there is only this:
the sound of breath,
the slow narrowing of space,
the knowledge
that every second I remain upright
is borrowed
and cannot be repaid.
I look across the ring again.
That hasn’t changed.
It won’t.
Unmoving.
Unharmed.
Unstoppable.
Waiting,
not impatiently—
it doesn’t need to hurry.
It already knows
how this ends.
So do I.
Still—
I lift my hands.
Not because I believe
I can win.
But because I refuse
to fall
a moment sooner
than I have to.
