Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Runner

"Are you a runner?" he asked.
"Yes, I am".
Instant response. No thought required.
I am.
I have run miles and miles through dirty trails in parks and the filthy cement side walks of many cities.

There was a greater volume to this answer though
...more truth to it than the tangled blond-haired boy with glowing teeth could surmise
for he didn't know much truth about me
well, at least no more than the squid's ink splash I'd provided.

I've run.
From so many things.
Dogs, sirens...men...women.
I've set my legs ablaze for seemingly nothing in retrospect.
I've floated up and out of potential situations,
and skipped at camouflaged speeds away and away.
I've run on two wheels. A loud engine.
Fast
and faster.

I've run in the air over oceans and waterfalls,
let the salt and cascades separate myself from the problem in a thick froth;
asked the fishes and sharks to distract the darkness for a moment while I slip off.

I've run from money
and run a little because of it.
I've run circles and hexagons around the illusion that I do or don't have it.

I've set records with dashes in matters so trivial
-like an answer to a tough question
or a pause, much needed-

Mostly, I've run from people and the relations that stem from them,
those people who dampened my spirit and wished to lock it in boxes,
those relations that have taken joy from me,
those people who would continue to do so throughout a span of years.

I've set sail enough years ago from the twisted carousel of confusing relations.
A woman so weak, a man too proud and another: an unholy combination of the two who spat in the face of logic.
I've cut that marionette's strings and run
and run
and run
for a possibility...
a translucent smear of hope that stays stubbornly on the advancing windows of life's phases.

I've run from love
and lovers alike,
from sadness undue and unnecessarily tragic.
I've run passed it in a lunge,
a bold attempt at being wiser, braver...capable.
And I've run from the past, most diligently...
shoved it behind a lead door locked with a gold-gilded key. 
And from this I race in an unforgivable rush.

I've run while I spoke the truth
and I've run while I lied.
I've run in reckless energy for life and
I've run while I died...

...little deaths,
that shed from my back like the snake's unwanted sheath.
...little deaths,
big weights that learn how to latch on with a lamprey's clasp.

I've released these burdens in drops that scatter behind me like the sangre from a slivered wrist,
reaching the ground in resounding explosions,
miniature while reverberating my heart's own cry.

He asked if I was a runner
while thigh high in the wet envelope of an early morning black Pacific.
And I, with pupils wide and heart exposed, replied to him from the antiquity of the answer,
"I am".