discipline/legendary
by Simran Brar / September 20, 2026 / Poetry / looking back and realizing
© Alfred Kappes
discipline
hidden weapon.
discipline is just frightened little girl with
shame
towering over her,
ready to break her neck and break he does.
crack. slam. crack. slam. the same words over and over again. the same no over and over again
restraint is not just binding rope. not thick, rough rope. digging into ngers, twisting and wringing out nerves. no, it is blood pouring all over you.
it’s standing carefully
not daring to interrupt its path
he collects rows of little dolls. the heads swing back and forth.
owers swaying in the wind. just see it that way.
delicate and pretty.
every splatter on the wall is a shadow of my own mind it frightens me, but it reminds me. it reminds me of me.
shame & i see it at the same time
centuries of practice is faster
big man and he feels bigger. he is bigger than the sun. a sagging beach built one grain of sand at a time
legendary
hand thrust into my back, a poor man’s excalibur a poor man’s king arthur, ego stretched see-through across a too-large frame, stretched white at the edges
his ngers grasp around my spine & it nally hits the crumbling brittle of small bones rub, strain he thinks his pride and mine are made of the same
He thinks I am imitating the lion’s roar, but really god’s elusiveness peaked as I came into personhood god forgot me, i forgot myself, and life whittled me into his image anyways, shadow or metamorphosis
ngers white-knuckled around my spine & i am reminded how big a man’s hands are, just how greedy i wish he would yank it straight out, just de-bone me
but instead he shakes sharply and rattles me loose boxes of hand me downs spin & tick like bombs i hold my breath, the boxes spin and tick
god fumbles around like a child, looking & looking spinning and ticking, like twin hands on a clock pride sits there quivering like leaves in my spine
Simran Brar is a tutor living in Surrey, BC who also writes poetry.