Mermaid

Sometimes you run until your feet feel mermaid pain and joints grind bone-on-bone like calcium clockwork and that's the moment you don't know you've been waiting for and you run five, ten miles more than planned, mind lost in the rushing sea; senses sharpened by salted wind raw from dawn footsteps balance the earth's shift. You're semi-aware, endorphins loosen your senses to drift mindless clouds through a hazy sky, sense of self solidified in motion. Coded in muscle, you point outside, inside your body; ego dissolved in runner's high. There's a reason she never returned under the sea.