It’s an itch, and urge, a pulling, scratching, gouging force churning away inside him. His chest is tight, knotted, formulate and plotting. Despising and demonic he plots revenge, he charts the motions and savours the instant. Brutal and vicious, he is animal.
A deep breath.
It refuses to move. Tensed, he is ready to pounce, his actions are driven by constriction, a rope taut around him, pulling him this way and that yet leaving him bound and motionless. Rooted here he spins it round again, and again the vitriol stirs.
Where is the saviour?
Is it pain, is it destruction and violation that will wreck this feeling, lay it to waste, hammerblows to his head?
It spins again, fuelling itself by feeding him more of what he doesn’t need and doesn’t want. He hates it, will not succumb to it and the fight burns on.
His violence scares him, the snarling beast within rips and claws to be set loose, his ribs containt it and it roars behind the bars. He used to let it out, he used to let it roam but never too far. Bruised knuckles and dented metal, macho posturing hiding the truth.
Rage.
It flows within him, consuming him. The constant unerring swing of the pendulum blade, the gentle tick, metronomic, insistent, unforgiving, unrelenting.