Becomings

There are times when the body is as numinous as words – Robert Hass Others, however, when it declares forcefully its sheer bodiness; your stomach tightens the waistband of jeans you bought just last month in the style of a ‘boyfriend’ you don’t have, and no jumper’s baggy enough. Physicality forces outwards, running. Hills are the quickest route to redemption. You recall Gethsemane as muscles flame, fuelled by guilty glycogen from last night’s binge. The world contracts corporeally. Each stride increases the laxative effect of emotions you don’t pretend to understand. And yet there’s no catharsis and escape from the self is absurd. It’s the process of translation, ritual purging through corporeal philosophy, pounding the Will with rhythmic strides. Forget those cloud-dwelling thinkers, living in dualist minds of ascetic detachment. Ask any runner: there is no destination. It’s the shift, the constant becoming. We’re all just atoms and stardust.