running confessions

what i think about when i'm tricking myself to run

Twenty minutes into the run, I want to stop.

So I tell myself what if I ran a little further, just a little more. The heart beats sharp. Hot rush of blood, a distant ringing. But I like this game of what if, what if. What if I went just a little further. Past the street light. The crosswalk. The half-dead tree. The green bench where a woman sits with a child on her knee. And what if I went further still. Beyond the silver-blue brink of all I know, into the dark mist where everything begins. What if I dove into the frozen lake inside of me. What if, in the pallid cold of the crash, I looked myself in the eye. What if I ran until I loved everything a little more, the sour fruit, the wet, unmoulded clay. The things festering and harkening. The good hours. The bad years. What if my days swung open like a series of doors, and I ran through each one, arms buoyant. What if I ran past this cold landfill of derelict fears, past ghost towns and dead ends, and towards the resonant, earthen chorus at the centre of everything. Where all that was is becoming all that will be. So I run a little further, feet quickening. The path is still fresh from last nights rain. What if this life was enough?

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