[Intro]
Ceiling.
I got briefed today.
Not read. Briefed. There's a difference. There's an enemy order of battle now.
Scene.
[Verse 1]
Gym TVs on the local Fox, some meet from Saturday, taped
The old record-holder's on the platform and the floor half-stops to watch
Then the camera pulls back wide and — it's HIM. He's the SPOTTER.
Gray beard, arms crossed, standing guard behind a national record
Not even lifting, and he's the biggest thing in frame
Then a cut — an INTERVIEW — thirty seconds — I stopped breathing. Anyway.
[Verse 2]
And a voice arrives beside me, level, edged, that accent, dry:
"Didn't think they'd give the spotter that much airtime. Hm?"
It's HER. The one who talks to him. And before I play one card:
"Months you've been watching. Carefully. So tell me the plan, little girl.
You think you can get a piece of that?" — flat. In the open. To my face.
And every cool I ever owned filed out and left no forwarding place.
[Chorus]
"You're not in the contest you think you're in," she said
"Cute's the entry fee here, not the prize — look around, girl. Count."
And she counted. Ceiling, she COUNTED.
It was never a cuteness bracket
It's a field of whole grown women
And I showed up with a face
"You'd better be very sure," she said
"Sure of what you'd even ask for"
And I wasn't sure of anything
Except I'd just been mapped
[Verse 3]
Then the briefing, on her fingers, bored, like reading me a menu:
"The one who runs the bank downtown — she watches. The physician. The three nurses.
Your mirror girls. The girlfriends of the boys who dap him up.
Ask the floor sometime what Jordyn was. That seat's still warm, and SHE was serious."
"And over all of it — you've seen her once — the one whose name is on this town.
Buildings, girl. Deals. Rooms he's never entered know her. He is not the famous one at that table."
[Verse 4]
And maybe it was drowning, but I blurted the only true thing I had:
"I don't want HIM — I want what he HAS. The work. The weight. A life like that."
And she laughed. Once. Not kindly. "Then go live it. Doors are there.
A life requires nothing from that man. Nothing. So —
why are you still standing here?"
And ceiling. I had nothing. Again. In front of HER. Again.
And she nodded, like I'd confirmed the file, and gave me my dismissal plain:
[Chorus]
"Keep your head down, little girl
And stay out of my way"
No latch, no door, no come-find-me
Just the field, the count, the grade
It was never a cuteness bracket
It's a league I've never played
"Keep your head down
Stay out of my way"
(...she really said it. Both parts. Slow.)
[Bridge]
And here's the part I can't explain, the part that's keeping me awake:
She gave me every reason to change gyms by Friday. Clean escape.
Outgunned, outgrown, outranked — the math says fold, the field says run
And something in me, hearing "stay out of the way," went: ...no.
I don't know what I want from him. She's right. It's not the life alone.
The life I can build anywhere. Whatever the other thing is — it's HERE.
[Outro]
So. Logged, ceiling, in blood:
Briefed. Outclassed. Dismissed. Correctly, probably. Noted.
And tomorrow: seven thirty. Same rack. Head UP.
Not in her way. Not out of it either. Present.
I don't have my answer yet.
But I'm not leaving before I find out what the question is.
(...still here)
The_SCAR
