Heavenly Surrender

I MAKE YOU A PRAYER, A HEAVENLY SURRENDER

TO THE ONE SOMEWHERE OUT THERE

THE ONE WHO CAN MEND HER

I PRAY FOR THE ONE WHO CAN OPEN MY DOOR

I spent my whole life sticking out like a sore thumb in my family and in my community and in my country. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone to just exist without having the eyes of everyone scrutinising everything I do. I wanted to be anonymous, unseen, to move within the shadows.

When I came here, I wanted to be like a chameleon. I wanted to blend in, and find my place. I didn’t plan to make waves. I wanted to move with the current, and only take the shots when they presented themselves.

But it never works out like that, does it?

Because you get a thread, a taste, a little dose, and then you’re hooked. For me, it was walking into the ring against Holly Rhodes. Everyone thought I was just another middle of the pack mediocre wrestler. When she looked past me and thought that it was another step on her journey, but I flipped the switch and made her a step on mine. I didn’t like feeling disrespected by her, dismissed by her. So I did what I had to do. And then I was addicted. I looked at Nathaniel Cartwright, his elevated position in the company, and put a target on his head too. And I brought the game that everyone thought was a fluke, and extinguished him. So much so that he needed a tune-up fight against a veritable nobody to coax him out of his sulky corner. A quick squash to make him forget yesterday’s truths. I got the gateway drug when I demolished Holly Rhodes and then I wanted more and more and more.

That’s the thing about gateway drugs though, isn’t it?

And the thing about impulsive people.

I took my eye off the prize, I let one slip through my fingers.

The Puertoriqueña, the one that had been inconsequential at ANNIHILATION when I finished the job and put everything in place for Tara to become the contender for the Impulse Championship. When it came time to face her woman to woman, with no other distractions, I overlooked her and she took me by surprise. She had something in her locker that I didn’t account for and I got caught.

That saccharin taste in the back of your throat? Coppery almost.

Defeat. It tastes like shit. But it lights a fire, doesn’t it?

Ask Betsy and Mason, because I made them look like shit in my desperate attempt to wash that taste out of my mouth. I drove my elbow into Betsy’s jaw and she was doing the stanky leg until Mason got all up above his station and tipped her over the top rope, and in his joy he didn’t see me coming. And that’s the thing, usually they don’t see me coming. Because usually I’m like a chameleon, blended in to my surroundings.

I don’t know where I lost myself, if I’m honest. Acid Beth saw me coming, because I lost myself. I bought my own hype, I stopped trying to blend in and I started screaming as loudly as I could, hoping that anyone and everyone would listen to me and pay attention, because I finally thought I had something worth shouting about, being heard about.

But as I stood over Mason’s body, my eyes drifted past the crowd, across the confused Granger on the outside, and to the back. I realised that I knew my purpose. I knew that it was all driving towards a goal, toward something more than William Mason, or Betsy Granger. Or Acid Beth.

To her. Heaven through violence.

But to get to the end of the road, I had to travel the path. To leave no stone unturned. Holly Rhodes got one over on me, I got it back emphatically, and now Acid Beth would suffer the same fate.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever wanted somebody so badly, even though you know you can’t have them?

I bet you have. Most of us have experienced this phenomena, I am not alone in this.

You look at them, from afar at first, and they barely catch your eye if not for their stunning beauty. But there are a lot of beautiful people and that in and of itself is not necessarily remarkable. And you go on your day, with a pep in your step because you saw somebody who made your heart flutter.

She fights with a frenzy that belies her diminutive frame, her willowy stature. And as she devours the poor victim that has been served to her, you catch a glimpse in her eyes and she looks different all of a sudden. Changed. Like there’s a frenzied person inside, trying to escape. And it is intriguing. So you take notice, now your eyes drift to her when she enters the room. Any room.

And as you stare at her, you notice that there’s more. Another contradiction. A fragility, a delicate beauty. A softness, and a kindness, that is fighting to find its way to the surface. It is in the way she softens her body language around people, the way her eyes look beyond you and feel like they are examining the dark parts of your soul, and yet, aren’t repulsed. They see you in a way that nobody else does, and they’re warm.

And it is all wrapped in this packaging that doesn’t seem to quite make sense. Everybody thinks they are callous, cold, disconnected. But when you look back at them, you see glimpses of what lies beyond the corporeal apparatus that houses and hides them. Inside the shell, you can see something quite exquisite, elegant, espectacular.

Suddenly, you start wondering about them even when they aren’t in the room. You think about what they might be doing in this moment, and whether they might think the same way about you, perhaps. Whether they’re sipping a cold sauvignon blanc next to a perfect blue pool with the sun beating down on their porcelain skin, wondering behind designer sunglasses what the hell the strange Spanish gypsy might be doing at any given time. You’re wondering whether they started getting Spanish chorizo at the store instead of Hungarian because it reminds them of you, or whether they’re looking forward to the next PWE engagement because it gives them an excuse to be around you.

And then you remind yourself that you are indeed crazy, because she has a life beyond this, a family, a husband, dogs, a house. When she offers a warm smile, and touches the palm of her hand against me, it is just her duty as the wife of the champion, there is nothing more there. Right?

And I’d have believed it, too. But she didn’t act like that around others, she didn’t even show that warmth when others were around. It was as though it was special, reserved only for me. I was convinced that she looked at me in ways that she didn’t even look at him. She didn’t speak with her mouth, this much was true, but she said more than words could ever convey through her energy. The connection was palpable, and electric, and it was everything in my being to not throw her against the wall. And I know she felt it too.

When we were drinking in Missouri, swaying down the street after the bar closed, there was a moment. Everything stopped, silence descended - or at least that’s what it felt like - and we were alone and I wanted to. The space between blinking eyelids.

Then in the corner of my eye, I saw a taxi rounding the corner and lost my nerve. I yelled for the taxi, and in the back of my mind I was reassuring myself that I would have another chance in the taxi, but it never came. The disappointment in her eyes still haunts me.

He was waiting for us when we arrived at the fighter hotel, and she didn’t hesitate for one moment. She barely looked over her shoulder, as she walked into his grasp and the moment was gone forever.

That moment will drive me in perpetuity, though. Because I know what I experienced, and I know what she felt, and I know that the person inside that is fighting to come to the surface is stifled by him. She’s not strong enough to see the forest for the trees. He got his claws into her when she was weak, and he said as much when he cornered me.

He cornered me because he felt threatened. He can paint a different narrative if that suits him, but it is clear to me that he came to deliver a warning. I can be her friend, on his terms, if he allows it, and if I step out of the boundary of what he considers acceptable then he will not be held responsible for his actions.

Does this sound like the actions of a secure man? Or an insecure one? One who knows that his iron grip on this beautiful flower is only a blink away from being melted into insignificance? He wants to head it off at the pass with his calm and steely self-assurance. He thinks he is intimidating, and that intimidation is going to work against someone who grew up in the most ruthless of patriarchies. But this wet excuse for a man doesn’t threaten me.

He inspires me.

Not in the way a champion should aspire to inspire, though.

She’s stuck with him, because whatever it was that he did to pull her out of a hole, evidently makes her feel indebted to him. He gave her children, a home, stability, brought her back from the brink and that’s valiant and admirable, and worthy of her gratitude. But to what end? He’s mediocre, bland, and unexciting. The clown girl is right, he definitely fucks wearing socks. A moment in her presence will tell you that she is ready for more, ready to explode out of this hollow shell that confines and constricts her.

So, yes. He inspires me because it is so clear that I can do so much more for her than he ever could, I could take her to places. Physically, spiritually, that he never could. Because he’s selfish, he’s self-assured, he’s comfortable. He takes her for granted, and whilst he might say that he is looking out for her interests, it is so clear that he really is looking to curate and manage her, he is looking to control her. He’s a control freak.

The joy that rushed through her body when we were alone, the feeling of being alive. When was the last time she felt that with him?

Never, I bet.

They have a connection through violence, Tara and Damian. When he destroys things, it does something to her, and when she gets her hands on people, its symbiotic. But when he put Cartwright to the sword, I went and did the job much more incisively. When I step in the ring, I show dominance on a level that he isn’t able or willing to go to. I let loose, where he holds back. I faltered because I hadn’t seen the forest for the trees yet. But now it is clear as day.

That brings me to La Puertoriqueña. Revenge. Defeat tastes awful, revenge is bittersweet in that you first had to suffer. But that makes it all the better in the end, doesn’t it? And to be the one who will walk to the ring first at Magnificence, it will be my opportunity to make a sacrifice for her, to show her the stairway to heaven. through my violence.

I have to show her that I will leave no stone unturned, that I am the one that can take her to heaven, that she doesn’t need to live in his shadow anymore, because if she came out from under it, she’d understand that she shines far more brightly that he ever could. I just have to show her.

And God forbid Beth gets in my way.

LET ME GO THROUGH
OH YES GIVE ME MORE
A PRAYER FOR THE LOVER, THE WILLING INTENDER
TO BREAK DOWN THE GIRL, A HEAVENLY SURRENDER