I. The Calculus of Courage
His hands tremble as he smears the greasepaint—
thick strokes of red to mock a smile,
white to erase the mouth that might confess.
The bulls snort in their pens, a low thunder.
He counts the cowboys: nineteen, twenty.
Each one a son, a brother, a man who will not meet his eyes.
He knows the algebra of risk—
how many seconds to intercept a horn’s arc,
how much laughter it costs to buy their survival.
II. Loneliness, a Second Skin
The crowd’s roar is a wall.
He tumbles, flops, becomes a caricature of panic,
while inside, silence pools like spilled ink.
At the after-party, whiskey burns his throat
as the riders toast their trophies.
No one toasts the jester who swallowed dirt
to spare their ribs.
His trailer creaks with absence—
a cot, a rusted sink, a photo (folded, faded)
of someone who stopped writing.
III. The Nightmare Calculus
In dreams, he’s always too slow.
Hooves crack bone. A cowboy’s scream
unspools like a siren. He wakes choking,
checking his hands for blood.
What if the mask slips? What if the crowd sees?
Not the hero, but the fault lines—
the hitch in his breath when the bull charges left,
the way his knees lock, just for a heartbeat,
before he lunges.
IV. Communion of Dust
Some nights, he talks to the bulls.
Presses his palm to their steaming flanks,
feels their pulse mirror his own.
We’re both here to play monsters, he murmurs.
They snort, nostrils flared at his honesty.
No one else hears him admit
how the arena’s applause is a hunger
that gnaws him hollow—
how he craves a hand on his shoulder,
unpainted, unafraid.
V. Exit, Stage Left
When the final rider dismounts,
he peels the mask like a scab.
The mirror shows a man dissolving—
cheeks raw, eyes like two bruises.
He thinks of the cowboy who nodded at him today,
almost imperceptibly.
A flicker of recognition, or a trick of the light?
Outside, the desert swallows the stars.
He wraps himself in the roar of silence,
practices his smile for tomorrow.
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