Month: April 2018

Last stand

I am tired of
Being judge and jury
In my pocket universe
Constantly pitting
The ideal against the real
How many places have I
Ignored outright?
How many people have I
Turned my back on?
All because they were
Not as perfect as I wanted them to be?

My filters have
(Mal)nourished me
To the point that the imperfections
The textures of the world
Are unrecognizable to me
Simply
Avoided
Shunned
Disparaged–

But I realize I am in
A feedback loop
A sociological Mobius strip
And have isolated myself
From the everyday person
From the neighborhood I find myself in
Because I foolishly seek
Something
Someone
Better

For years
I’ve built my fort
And never let anyone visit
Now I must live in it

Instead of thinking
Of what’s beyond the horizon
It seems there’s plenty of reasons
For me to stay right here
Where I am
Amid the people and places I overlooked
Even though other’s impressions of me
Cannot be undone–

That will be my penance
As I take the remaining steps I have left
To quietly move through the lives
Of those who might have known me if I had let them
Now I cannot ask them to know me
To take me in
Because it’s too late
There’s no going back

I must make the most of what I have left
There is no cavalry to rescue me
No deus ex machina
To conveniently end
The story on happy terms

But I accept that
May my tombstone be inscribed
With three words–
I am sorry

Sprint

I am running away from you
Because there is no point
In trying to get you to
Come along with me

We’re at different paces
Our strides never to coincide
And so I move on–

Now I’m taking four steps per second
Where with you only three-and-a-half
I can sustain this pace for a mile
Before I have to slow down–

Chest congestion is always a limiting factor
I start to get a bad case of the sniffles
As I try to ingest more and more air
The faster I run when I am congested
The exertion seems to break up whatever
It is that keeps my breathing from being
Less constrained

Sometimes when I run
I wish I had a box of tissues
Because the runny nose gets really bad–

When I do slow down
It’s only for five minutes at the most
Then the pace increases again

The cycle repeats until a measely hour is over
Sometimes I hit over seven miles
Sometimes only six-and-a-half

I used to push myself to
Run faster
Run farther

But after a certain point
What is the point?
An hour is enough
Because most people
Can’t even do that

Weaponized

I have been chased
All over the world
By others like me
They say I’ve gone rogue
Out of control
That I must be stopped
No matter the cost

I need to give them an ultimatum
Or I’ll never be left alone

Now I’m fighting another agent
In some foreign land–
His technique is like mine
Every strike is meant to incapacitate
Precisely applied to joints and nerves
His demeanor is like mine
A steel gaze fueled by high pain threshold
And determination to win at all costs

Only one of us is
Leaving this room alive

And that someone will be me