Runner
I’ve been runnin'
Out of breath,
cold sweat, lungs burnin'
But these legs, they move but they aint goin’ -
no place, no distance can be found between the chased and the chaser
cuz they’re one and the same
The hunter the hunted,
the stalker the stalked,
the predator the prey,
they’re all the same
Maybe someday, I'll be free,
but it’s hard to run from the person that you see
in the mirror
Two years
builds a masterpiece of beautiful potential.
Ten hours
and that world begins to crumble.
My mind unwinds
rewinds
declines
beelines
then redefines what’s real.
Me is history
I can’t even feel
FEAR
of what’s uncertain -
doubt, despair, confusion, manipulation -
what is this new sensation?
I can’t breathe.
I can’t even cry.
Two years and an eternity.
I watch them drive right by
and I start runnin’
I’m grounded to a hope that’s suffocating -
trying to distract myself from the sting
that threatens to poison me.
But can it corrupt a steel heart?
Still, I’m falling apart -
can’t remember my past life
who I was
what I felt like.
A month rolls by -
shoulda told the devil to take a hike,
but it’s no use.
Let him have every hair on my head.
I don’t care.
No, I just don’t want to.
Problem is I do
so much it bites -
clothes-soaked-red-from-threads-once-white
a soul once bright -
smite me down.
Burn the witch inside.
This ain't no Jekyll and Hyde,
cuz Jekyll’s gone
up and died.
I keep runnin’
Man's not meant to run faster than he has strength -
guess I don’t know my own -
strength, that is, has its limits the mind doesn’t know,
can’t even know itself.
Is it friend or is it foe?
No, there’s no friend here -
only an illusion of what should be,
a mind void of cheer.
Dreary place to be my mind.
Fear takes control -
a prisoner to its power,
powerless at its pull -
the only thing to fear is fear itself.
So call me fear
“Good enough” turns to wishful thinking,
a fairytale.
Cinderella, Ariel, Belle.
Likely stories those three,
just as likely as Mary Poppins on her carousel.
Swell.
Guess I’m living up to the impossible.
In this moment...
No.
In this reality
I’m both chased by and chasing perfection -
trapped in a lose-lose situation -
a complication I can’t uncomplicated for fear I might corrupt these mind calibrations.
Evaluations I can’t evaluate,
estimations I can’t estimate,
calculations I can’t calculate,
while runnin' on two broken legs,
one broken heart,
and three broken minds.
One for every time I almost took my life
This. Is. Reality
Thanks for noticing
Copyright © Rebecca Kiser | Year Posted 2025
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