pain wasn’t a mistake.
some bored engineer in the sky invented it
to separate the great ones from the ghosts.
the amount of hurt you can swallow
without whining
thats your rank as a man.
eat it.
digest it.
grow.
i don’t want to be remembered as nice.
nice is for doormen and dead dogs.
remember me as the bastard
who never dropped the load
even when his hands were gone,
even when there was nothing left to hold with
but teeth and spite.
the mountain doesn’t care about your story.
she’s a cold hearted bitch.
she’ll break your fingers and laugh.
but every time she spits in your face
and you keep climbing,
something in you sharpens.
you get meaner.
clearer.
i keep going up there
because i like the taste of her spit.
it’s honest.
you never feel more alive
than when you’re hauling
three hundred pounds of responsibility
up a stairwell at three a.m.
while the whole city is sleeping off
another forgettable night.
that burn in your legs,
that throb in your back,
that little voice that says “drop it, man”
and the other voice that says “don’t you dare”
thats the line
from you
to your purpose.
unbroken.
straight.
i learned love in a parking lot,
holding my girl’s hair
while she puked tequila between parked cars.
cold air, dark
her knees on oil stained concrete.
thats when i knew
this one’s worth every hangover
i’ll ever earn.
love isn’t roses and weed.
love is wiping her mouth
and not leaving.
the heaviest cross
isn’t the one nailed to your back by life.
it’s the one you pick up
when you could walk away
and don’t.
that’s where a man appears.
right there.
in the “could’ve left”
and didn’t.
i don’t ask for easy.
i ask for thick skin
a skin so thick it can stop bullets
when i pray,
it’s not for mercy.
it’s for more weight
and tendons that don’t snap.
the world’s a carnival built to steal your time
and call it fun.
neon, noise, music,
ten thousand ways to turn you into a spectator.
keep your hands in your pockets.
walk past the games.
find the exit.
find the work.
i looked around at the sex,
the parties,
the endless chatter,
and i realized
i was starving to death
at an all you can eat buffet.
everything tasted like grey sludge.
give me a problem to solve.
give me a war to fight.
keep your candy.
i want meat.
the mountain doesn’t care about your knees,
your lungs,
your sad biography.
she just sits there,
cold, indifferent,
waiting to see who’ll come up anyway.
don’t climb her for the view.
climb her to kill the part of you
that wants to stay at the bottom
to me she’s a mean, drunk bitch
with great tits and long nails.
she keeps kicking me in the ribs
and every time i crawl back up
she lets me suck on her wisdom
unlimited power doesn’t come
from sitting on your ass
trying to feel good.
it comes from eating dirt
and cultivating a taste for it.
find your one thing.
the thing that makes you tired
and crazier
and more alive than any drug.
marry it.
‘til death.
everything else:
no.
say no.
say it often.
say it loud.
say it RUDE
then say yes
to the war.
you’ve got to piss on your territory.
this corner of the world is where the work happens.
keep out.
a man without a war
is barely a man.
full send.
one mission.
one vision.
blinders on.
run until your heart explode.
the real joy
is looking at the burden and saying:
yes.
this is mine.
i will carry this.
be rude.
be terse.
time is bleeding out of you
every second.
don’t waste it
chatting about the weather
with people who aren’t carrying anything.
the masculine heart is a furnace.
it burns hotter
the more shit you throw in.
i don’t want peace.
i want a hill full of enemies
and a sharp knife.
i want my kids to say,
“he was a mean bastard
but nothing ever touched us
while he was alive.”
quit jerking off to potential.
start fucking your actual life.
i love my family enough
that i’d eat glass
if it kept them smiling.
i lift
so when the world catches fire
i can carry them through it.
the climb hurts worse
when your dick is raw
from the night before,
but that’s when the air is thinnest,
and the wisdom is purest.
you limp.
you breathe fire.
you keep going.
love isn’t butterflies.
love is choosing her
on the days
you want to put a gun in your mouth
and vanish.
love is not doing it
because you know
your exit wound
would rip through everyone who ever counted on you.
don’t remember me as polite.
remember me as the stubborn bastard
who kept walking
after his feet were gone.
the human spirit is hard to break
but easy to rot.
all it takes to rot
is nothing.
no movement.
no fight.
just comfort
and a couch.
movement is life.
struggle is vitality.
you have to be willing
to be the bad guy in their story
so you can be the hero in your own.
they’ll say you’re cold,
selfish,
obsessed.
fine.
pain is good
it tells you where the weakness is.
don’t numb it.
read it.
fix the machine.
the ascent is treacherous.
good.
if it were safe,
you’d meet idiots at the top
taking selfies.
danger keeps the neighborhood clean.
you’re not performing for the crowd.
you’re performing for the brothers,
the family,
the thousand real ones
who’d bleed for you,
who you’d bleed for.
turn your back on the rest.
saying yes to everything
is a disease.
it dilutes you.
makes you thin,
watery,
forgettable.
be thick.
be concentrated.
say no a billion times
so you can say yes
to your one thing.
understanding doesn’t come from books.
it comes from being kicked in the teeth
and standing back up
over
and over
and over.
stop being a pussy.
the world is hard.
so what?
you’re supposed to be harder.
look at the mountain.
she doesn’t care
if you climb her.
she’ll be there
long after you’re dust.
climb anyway.
for the defiance of it.
the masculine joy is quiet.
it sits in the corner,
watching your family eat,
knowing the door is locked
and the gun is loaded
and nothing is getting through you
to them.
distraction is the devil.
it wears high heels,
sells you fun,
serves you emptiness.
the mountain keeps trying to kill me
and i keep fucking her anyway.
pain is the universe saying,
“wake the fuck up.
i still need you.”
your job:
find the heaviest cross
you can carry,
then carry it up the mountain
with pride and with honor.
this is how good men live.
true masculine happiness
only lives inside voluntary burden.
happiness 2.0.
not pleasure.
not distraction.
not vacation packages.
voluntary burden.
one mission.
one vision.
all your limited energy
poured into it
like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.
ignore the noise.
laser focus.
like a kid in a video game
putting every skill point
into one attribute
until it’s broken.
seeing your people happy,
protected,
provided for
that’s the whole trick.
by default,
i’m a miserable creature.
everything tastes bland.
sex, movies, weed, trips
they’re just different brands of stale bread.
the only real happiness i found
was guarding and providing
for my family,
my woman,
my brothers,
the few thousand who get it.
that’s happiness 2.0.
hurting with a reason.
long enough timeline,
you start to see it.
the parties blur.
the orgasms blur.
the noise blurs.
but the nights you carried weight
for someone you love,
those stay sharp.
by default,
i have everything
and still want to punch
every face i pass.
the only thought
that holds my hands back:
if i break him,
it might spill onto my people.
they don’t deserve the fallout
from my boredom and rage.
one year ago,
in a cell and after it,
i wanted to end it.
serious.
the only thing that stopped me
was a picture in my head:
my siblings staring at a box,
knowing their brother checked out
when it got hard.
or
knowing their brother
got dropped into hell,
took the beating,
and crawled back out
swinging.
i know which story
i want tattooed in their psyche.
i want to be the symbol
that whispers to them someday,
when it’s their turn in the dark:
don’t quit.
don’t you fucking quit.
push.
fight for your highest possibility.
that’s the job.
that’s the war.
during the camps they tried everything
to crack the human spirit.
starvation,
endless labor,
cold,
beatings.
and still,
it wouldn’t die.
it bent.
it howled.
it limped on.
then they ordered them
to dig holes
and fill them back in,
again and again,
no purpose at all.
one by one,
they broke.
they died.
take away food,
take away comfort,
the spirit hangs on.
take away meaning,
it shatters.
that’s what we’re made of:
meaning.
purpose.
something worth bleeding for.
pain and suffering
are woven into the fabric of reality.
with great power
comes great hurt.
such is life.
it’s ugly
and it’s beautiful.
your job is not to dodge the hurt.
your job
is to choose a reason for it.
find your one thing.
dial in.
focus.
full send.
ignore the carnival.
ignore their agendas.
say no so often
they start to hate you.
good.
you weren’t born to be liked.
you were born to be counted on.
carry the heaviest cross you can find
for the people you refuse to lose.
let it rip your shoulders open.
let it carve a legend into you.
when they talk about you after,
let them say
he was a mean bastard,
but the world never touched us
while he was alive.
that’s enough.
that’s everything.
