Letter of Recommendation: Getting Punched In The Face

I got punched in the face tonight. This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. When I was a kid my older brother and I got in fistfights constantly - I still remember the first time I beat him, when I was around 8. There's no better feeling. When I was in high school I got in a few real fistfights because I grew up in West Virginia and that's something you do there. When I was in college I did drunk fight club because I'm an idiot and so were my friends. I have always liked getting punched. Not, like, going to a bar and seeking a fight with a stranger - I just like consensually punching and being punched by another person. I don't want to hurt anyone who hasn't signed up for it but I want there to be places where we mutually agree that we can hurt each other but we will do our absolute best to take care of each other after the fact. I know this is maybe not a normal way to feel but I am so angry all the time and this is a thing that makes me feel alive and there is nothing more beautiful to me than finding places where people feel the same way. We feel the love and rage in equal measure in each other's fists.

The longest-standing outlet for this perversion of mine has been going to hardcore punk shows. There is a culture of consensual violence found in these places that really doesn't exist anywhere else. You get into the pit, you do the unique dances designed for a place where you're at constant risk of getting hurt, and whenever someone inevitably does everyone drops everything and does their best to help them up and, if needed, get them medical attention. Tonight I went to a Poison the Well show and got hit in the face and my nose started bleeding. I wasn't even planning on getting in the pit but it was to good to resist. The music absolutely slapped -they've still got it - and I two-stepped my way directly into someone's fist. Luckily it wasn't broken and mostly everyone I saw thanked me for my service. It fucking rocked.

I don't really know how to explain what's so special to me about this. I've talked to friends who are avid ravers and they've explained to me that they feel more alive on the dance floor at 2am than they do anywhere else. I guess that's maybe the closest analogy I have but it strikes me as frankly less sacred than what I'm feeling. Since I can't do molly for chemical reasons and also I just don't like raving that much the things that make me feel most alive are dancing to the angriest music humans have ever made with the constant threat of getting punched in the face looming over me. I'm sure it's nice to feel the touch of the divine with chemical assistance but frankly you're a fucking baby if you'd rather do drugs and listen to your little repetitive trance beat and sway about on the dance floor when you could be getting punched in the face to music that would make God go deaf. Nothing is more real than experiencing joy while knowing you could get hurt at any moment. The natural masculine drive towards violence is subsumed into something beautiful: a space of deep care and love that also is full of punches. I really can't recommend it enough.