The old friend is back.  A calm resolve enters my Being, a subtle rage fills my mind.  I will not succumb.  I will not be made a fool of.  I will not lose my grip on the safety of this place.

I’ve been here before, and I’ve survived.  I am, in effect, invincible.  Kick me and be kicked.  Smack me and be smacked.  Fight me and lose.

Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale again.  Smile in the realization.  Find the soft spots and make them hard.  Find the hard spots and temper them.  Realize that pain is a gift from those who wish to expose your weaknesses.

I welcome the shunning.  I welcome the ignorance.  I embrace it all, even from those who would watch the blood stream down my face with a smile on their own.  They are my truth, they are the ones who show me the most.  They are the ones who bring on the winter to which I will build a fire.  They will inspire me to great feats of strength.

They are liars who inspire great honesty in me.  I will not enter into their weakness.  I will not participate in their shallowness.  I will rid myself of excess and welcome the hunger.  I will cut, I will bleed, and I will drink my own blood in front of their worried faces as I laugh at the fact that they believed they had me.

The path has brought me here and now I am steel once again.  Fuck the absence of truth, the pretentious feeling of warmth that never existed.  They have not seen me before, they have only heard rumors.  Now they will see me in my glory.  I am not your pussy.  I am not your lamb.  I am your fiercest Lion, and I am coming for dinner.

I have risen.  I have awoken.  I am the Warrior.