Peace

She's naked, curled up next to me, her head resting on my chest. Her hair tickles my chest but I don't move. Leg is is draped across mine and we're both warm to the touch from sex.
The sun is setting.

Everything else is far away after an afternoon begun together which has given way to an evening in bed.
"I love the way you touch me," she says sleepily as her fingers traces a circle on my chest.
"I'm so soft and you're so hard, so tense, so muscular," she says appreciatively.
"Is it hard being a man?" she asks.
"It has a lot of perks, but at times it is trying. Given my chosen hobby, every day is a test. A thousand days and  beyond march of attrition in the gym. But what else is there for a man?"
"I'm glad you do it. I'm glad you can be like that," she considers thoughtfully.
"Do you enjoy it?"
"I do. I feel at peace in that moment, completely and utterly focused on this battle of will and technique and precision. It turns the volume down on everything else in life."
She asks about my childhood which isn't something I share much these days.
It gives her some insight into the kind of man I am and have made myself become through force of will.
--

I guess there's men out there that fear violence.
I guess there's men out there okay with knowing fear first hand and running away.
I don't really understand their world.
Let go.
Let go of your fear.

How can you look at yourself in the mirror when you wake up if you're afraid of some dude walking down the street?
It's not about winning. It's about not being afraid.
There is no middle ground.
You're either the kind of man willing to do the dance of you're not.
I don't know how a woman sleeps peacefully at night next to a man who hasn't answered the most fundamental question for a man in the human condition.
The thin veneer of civilization is just that.