You are looking at me with eyes smoked with fury, as if right in this moment I’m the epitome of all your aggression and frustration, to give yourself something tangible on which you can fix all your anger rather than let it lie untapped, eating you from the inside. And I play the perfect sparring partner to your volcanic temper. Goading you, enjoying the disintegration of your normally unflappable poise as that mask of cool confidence ever so slightly falters, one notch then two, cracking to reveal the fiery temperament you like to keep well away from the surface. The part of you that you hate to let see the cold light of day.

You hide it, pretend it doesn’t exist because it’s not your image, is it.  You don’t want to be seen to care like that, do you? Oh no, nothing gets to you, nothing can get under your skin and worm its way into your ordered existence. Ever laid-back, ever in control, a far cry from the spectacle we were treated to at the start of the season where you were so anxious to prove you were more than just a hot-shot rookie who wouldn’t last two laps playing our games at the very pinnacle of our sport. No, you’ve ironed out the mistakes, curbed those traits you felt were undermining you, holding you back from greater things, and allowed those things that make you the racer than you are become ever heightened. No flaws, pure speed. Cool, calm and collected, the usual but damningly effective clichés that sum you up. That you want to sum you up. The strength of your commitment, the willingness to learn and the down-right stubbornness to yield to your fellow competitors, our characteristics make us one and the same, no matter how to fail to see it, or how you deny it. And it makes it all the more simple to wind you up to your breaking point, to force the cracking of composure falling into disdainful anger because I know your limits. Just like you would know mine if you stopped to consider what we are and realised that we were cast from the same mould. But, you are blinded. They call it the red mist, and it consumes you far more than it should. A personal demon stalks you, pushes you towards distraction and you go over the edge.

And I don’t have to do a thing to bring you down. Which is a shame because I would have liked to have been the cause of it

See, not so perfect, are we? Know thy enemy. No, you don’t. Not completely. Or at least, not as you should. He should be more familiar to you than yourself, like the back of your hand, I think, is the expression. Dissect them, take them down to their base components. Analyse, learn, assimilate.

Conquer.

And how I love to see for once you fail, for your unshakeable control to slip between your fingers, because then you do look truly dangerous. All the more reason for me to toy with you like this. Just because I can. Just because it makes me feel good.

Of course, I’m still angry with you and I think I have every right to be. Words exchanged, like venom spat across the less than private surroundings, we knew what we were snarling to one another, knew the blows our words would strike and made the urge to lash out and put fury into action barely conceallable. At least we gave them a show, didn’t we? Let them watch and try to stop us as fists flew and our tempers got our of hand in full view of the establishment and our equals just for the sheer kick it gave us.

And looking at you now, away from the glare of an audience, I know you enjoyed it just as much as I did. For all the hate in those eyes right now, there isn’t enough to truly dislike me. We walk a fine line between love and hate, blurring the boundaries of two parallel emotions until it becomes inconceivable that the two can exist without each other, believing only that they are one and the same feeling. It’s a game for us, to explore the limits and see how far we can push each other, one big wind-up for the sake of our egos and to vent our emotions.

How can I hate you without similarly loving you?

How can I love you without hating you?

No, I don’t. I feel neither. You are a distraction, a very welcome one. But you are not the grand prize. Your anger entertains me, our war of words, the violence is amusing. Yet, I neither love nor hate you. In all honestly you are not worthy. Not an easy target, but still there is another towards whom these emotions burn white hot and ice cold. Someone else who these feelings are magnified one hundred fold, and you are merely a diversion from my vain pursuit of an idol I see every race weekend yet who is isolated. So far removed from me that I’m reduced to pursuing other avenues in an attempt to recreate what I once had.

You will do for now. Your ire, your temper. Your hate and your desire.

And when I’m done with you then we will see just how strong you are.

~The End.