at the moment the sun grows
colder, running shoes are laced.
buds planted in ears to let music
grow.  stretch thru the legs and out
the door -- now he is running
for two miles or more.  *******
down air like coal, this locomotive
just goes, goes goes -- slower now
up a hill, opening a stride before
fertile skyscrapers with applauding
windows.  downtown olympian, do
you do this for fun?  what rhyme or
reason make Hermes' feet run?
sweaty dynamo, athlete without
sport, endurance is a gracious import.
may your heart pump wine thru-
out each vessel. may, like Solo, you
run, these streets your Kessel.

the first time I ran,
mother says,
was because I didn't
want to be held on to,

so I broke all grasps
and fled as children
do and not remember
afterwards,

why

the last time I ran
was yesterday,
cajoling myself
to alarm beeps,

like a break in habit,
slow, tired and then
in rhythm, but not like
a first time, or a last,

tedium

did joy
pass by?
the running gods
didn't reply.

I have a flighty heart and a feisty mouth;
Fall in love too often and fall apart too fast.

running shoes, gym shorts,
98 degree midday --
I'm an idiot.

Thoughts glanced off me,
lying like stones in the sand
I ran
quick mind over quickened feet
hands ripped open by bushes;
rich thickets that sprung
from the very land
that my own soles scorched.

I chased skies
chased words away from mind
and wept imprisonment from inside,
howling at the chains that kept me bolted to the ground

I threw both time and space at my feet,
like the clothes of a slave.
As my legs lurched for length,
I swept eerie visions of my past away
like wind across my skin.

My toes pounded land;
my eyes searching the horizon
bleeding ears catching the groans
of the earth that my hands clawed at.

A ravenous beast;
my feet sought still to devour the world
as it lay sleeping like a lamb
woken only by the lush rip of my teeth
stopping its temperate pulse.

My lungs gasped the air that my sweat left humid,
no more was I condemned to life
my empty chains
cracked off
by pulsating limbs.
My insatiable teeth
gnawing at the very land itself
no longer was I able to sit amongst the trees;
or gaze up at the stars
I was not content to watch the world,
but eat it;
taste the bitter earth
and force it down dried gullet
drinking in the seas
to quench my geographical thirst.

And still
my wide eyes searched for their next slaughter
the next nation
to ****** the life from.

I want to run away from me
To a magical land, somewhere safe.
Away from all the pain I cause
from the tears I force and the veins I...

I want to run away from here
from the thoughts I have that make me shake
and the fear that comes to take me deeper
into a hole I cannot feel the bottom of
but I lay in all the same.

Just let me run away from home
or rather,
let me run away from me.

But away from home first of all
so the wreckage is nothing I can see.
I cannot see the friends I leave
or tears I surely cause.
You see,
I know it's all my fault,
but I'll let them know
when I run
away from me.