Saturday, November 10, 2007

run



I am sad, shuttered. Distant. Removed. Separated.

It is time to escape again.

Instantly, mottled grey and khaki sweeps beneath me. Knees aching, my mind swimming. Her voice compels me further, but my breathing is labored.

A cloud of choking fog and soot parts as I charge it, but it's always there. Ahead of me. I will myself further.

For a moment, there is silence. Thoughts crash at me. A choir of doubt and sadness and longing echoes against the chamber walls of my mind. I alone listen. I alone can hear. It sounds like a dirge: unfair.

I ask to be loved but I am never there to return it. I am perpetually absent.

Absent: this refrain repeating itself again and again, in time with the swoosh-swoosh of blood against my eardrums.

Suddenly... erased. It is pushed aside; gone again, if only for noise. It waits just beyond the edge, though.

A moist, acrid wind pushes against me; I draw my face down. Before me and behind, I notice half-crescent dimples in soft gravel. They mark my path.

Every three feet or so, there is evidence of where I have been, and where I am going.

I make the last turn, and I remember being here before. I am brought to the same place I'd just departed. I am tricked. I am tricking myself.

Trapped in a circle.

I'm done now. Panting. Seated outside my tent beneath sickly yellow light. My elbows rest atop my knees. I realize nothing has changed. I am not escaping.

A smile cracks. Beneath me, little drops collect and turn the grey cement black. It feels like I went somewhere. Like I tried.

5 comments:

Shelly said...

All I can say is WOW...

Bag Blog said...

You are an amazing man. If you must circle, spiral up.

mandy said...

that is just heartbreaking... but hopeful. I'm not sure if that makes sense... i hope it does.

Lemon Gloria said...

I know you will keep moving. You are always moving forward, even when it feels like a circle, like you've been there before. Big hug to you.

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking about you.

Chin up.