I run

Striving to reach an unseen finish line.

Drenched with effort, drained, aching,

I race ahead, the beat of my heart reassuring me I am almost there-

I will be happy soon.

Running, I am full of cold, consuming hatred,

Bleeding sweat and bitter tears of impotent rage,

Knowing I am disappearing, paying the highest price

For a crown of vapor.

I can see the crown in my mind,

Elusive, evanescent, imaginary,

A vision of sweet cool rest from the seething anger,

The hot desperate fury at my powerlessness

To sate my thirst for vicious revenge

To make someone pay for this unfathomably deep well of haunting pain.

I pound my feet on the hard uneven path of time

As I fruitlessly seek absolution for my humanity,

Each step a prayer bead on the path

To forgiveness for my fallibility, for my inability to forget though I try so desperately-

I am a prisoner, tortured by my cruel taunting memory.

I run with every fiber of my being,

Looking forward, daring not to look back or to stop even briefly

Because to stop would mean to hear the small sorrowful cry of the soul

Wanting to return to how it used to be-

Needing, wanting, crying to be freed

To stop running vainly on the treadmill of moments

Captive to doubt

Living in place

Chasing the lost wind.

By denying myself a moment of opportunity to step down and stop fighting,

I allow my existence to be defined only

By non-existent destinations.