The Thirty-Sixth Reply - Seven Years Prior

To Sonia, who takes long walks, 

To say boxing is a sport to me feels, quite dramatically, like an underestimation of its value in my life. Would a flower upon a meadow describe the great sun above as simply an acquaintance - or should it be nothing more than the single object of its greatest love and dependence? At times, it is as though the stinging in my fists is all that reminds me of my presence upon this Earth. 

It is a liturgy of punishment, as I consider it now. I’ve met nary a woman who will engage with the sport, yet it is often easier than expected to bluster men into a contest with me - so much for chivalry, that most pathetic of decorums. I find that within my heart is a rage nearing constancy. In my calmer, happier moments, it remains simmering, threatening to billow out upon provocation. When provoked - it is all that I am. And who must provoke me, if not the masculine sex and this ridiculous world they have carved out? 

I request you not repeat to any other soul that I also find boxing to be a punishment for myself, as well. Do not judge me for this, I beg you. For all my arrogance, for all my confidence, for all my suppositions of grandeur, my mind cannot seem to tolerate the conception that I must be spared the punishment I deserve. I shall never allow a man to punish me, nor this unfriendly, contentious world - No, I arbitrate my allowance myself. 

Have you ever allowed yourself to be beaten within an inch of your life? To be gasping for air, to feel ache so deeply in your skin that you wonder if there is anything left unbroken? I shall never say aloud that it is, in some twisted way, cathartic. Perhaps it teaches me what I am capable of surviving. Perhaps it instructs me in the way of mastery over my own form, even upon the brink of a pitiable ending. 

Yet it would be disingenuous to say that this is my only reason. My hand shakes even as I struggle to place these words into ink. Sonia, I fear that I am not a person worth being upon this Earth. I fear that a terrible mistake was made when I was brought forth, as though God constructed me to simply be dysfunctional by nature, to demonstrate failure to others so that they may keep in line. Upon some mornings I find purpose in this, a grand challenge to bear. On other days… my fists must be cracked and bloody, a reminder that I am, and always shall be, a mistake waiting to be correctly pruned. 

Sonia, I fear that I am a monster. At times, I worry you can see it, too. 

Pitchforks and torches, 

Cordelia