Writers as Kids: To Wrestle

by Paula Gilovich

Pictured: Jamie Gaughran-Perez

Enter 27 high school wrestlers.
They will stand against a flattened bleacher. It will be
the beginning of the year, and time to take a picture.
And they will photograph the beginning of year as if
it is the end of year. Coaches will remain
on the side in regular outfits. Their faces
will appear as if they have snuck into the scene.
The boys will be tight or loose in their jumpers, depending
on their luck. They will line up, kneel, make masculine their
faces, their weak shoulders, their hands on knees.
They will invariably have problems.
Things like desperate thoughts against becoming men.
Things like feelings people have told them they feel and they do not.
Things like all their wants that they will not.
Things like all that wrestling teaches them to love that they cannot.

Even when your body lives what you want it to, make sure to keep it far from mind.
Swing into sanctity. Fall into sanctity. Hold someone you don’t know from behind
in competition.

They will falter, make feminine moves, and they will scold themselves
until they drink until they puke on Friday night.

Whatever you can’t remember must be good.

Spotlight on the boy down left. He will be the example.
The truest form, the nearly Adam, the country and
the quest for something god in man.
The boy will stare into the camera light
as if it is the sun and promise to become president.
In a dirty state of mind he will promise to be cleaner,
better. The devil will get pinned; he cannot win.
The boy is a very good wrestler.

All the boys exit, except this one.
This is where our greatest tasks are at hand.
With no one to wrestle.

Comments

[gamefaced.blogspot.com]

whoa.