On running and writing

The trees whizzed by my unconcerned eyes. Parents played with their infants on blankets by the river. Tattooed young British couples snogged in the bushes. Teens on skateboards smoked cigarettes and did kick-flips. Clad in my painfully American spandex athletic clothes, I sprinted around Cambridge in desperate search of the race-track. A three mile minimum became the norm, with stairs or sprints mixed in. My favorite path took me through a field of brown bulls. Bulls on the outskirts of a city, just soaking up the sunshine and minding their own business. I envied them, though I knew I’d be bored sitting so painfully still. Flicking flies off my back with my long, wiry tail.

Metallic music blared from my headset. These runs felt like a downward spiral into oblivion. Heat, rain, social obligation, nothing stopped me. I felt lighter when the sun hit my skin, when I breathed in deeply, my lungs begging for air. When I was fast.

As I saw it, I had two options. Running or writing. As soon as I sat down, my ink would begin to flow or my fingers would rapidly strike my keys. I didn’t have a cap to put on that pen. There was no cork to plug the holes of my heart and mind. It just kept flowing and it scared me and this is what I got. . .

An organized disaster

Keeps these on hand in case it all falls out of control again. She knows the order can be restored. She’s got the code written on the back of her hand.

 

Maybe she wants it so she can float,
Glide with grace, on the face of her Mother Earth,
Down every street, through each field
Just float
w e i g h t l e s s l y

a patchwork of her
thoughts and dreams
it's not nearly as
complex as it may seem
though if she were to lose
these pieces of her mind
her confidence and sanity
would be quite difficult to find.