You can fall into the trap of believing

some friendships are just harsh,

like how on the path to mastery of martial arts,

people will hit you. You don’t always find

your way to realizing some will like hitting you,

that they’ll do it to hurt you. I was a teenager

in the ring with a middle-aged man

on a day I forgot my facemask. That day his fists

took a liking to my lips. The blood specked

against my shirt and the helmet, and then the four of us

continued like this. Each fist making

the first’s wound newer, the wound welling up

around the bruise, the blood clotting

then the clot popping into bits, the lighter

scarlet liquid behind it streaking

throughout the room, and because in the ring

violence fits into perfect conduct, and I was

also throwing trained kicks and punches,

I didn’t think about how fists score lowest,

that in point fighting, there’s more to a body

than fists and more to a face than shredded lips,

and though the matches are timed,

I wasn’t looking for an end, and though I was hurt,

disfigured by my lips’ hot hanging,

I couldn’t grasp it. They say love swirls this sport.

At the end, regardless of what happens,

good sportsmanship calls us to hug and smile

in each other’s faces in aftermath conversation,

so I did. Brought up in enough systems that teach

such lessons, one can lose perspective on malice. I did.

With my friends, that’s the last thing it is.