Running Out of Time
If time were distance
Then I would be bounding hard
Minutes turning to miles
And an over saturated face
Turning to tears which burst for
The crushed bones in my feet
That fall into line, keeping me
Just above the ground
and the dirt that I had
fallen in
And moving
away, away, away…
My distance is time
And my distance is down
And I am under water
With a surface that’s always
too many strokes away
Like a tired night which begins at dawn
And swallows the day
With a sickly, unrepentant stomach
So I swallow my regret
Covering my red skin with fig leaves
So then, maybe then god won’t see
But more importantly, So I won’t see
where I am headed
Or rather, where I will never be
Emotions flee
But not as quickly as me
And I will get out
No matter how tightly life holds
Because distance makes me old
And I would rather run the time out
Of a life that
is going nowhere fast
then accept a life
that turns me to stone
A life that makes me die and cry
One swallow, one embrace,
One broken heart
at a time
Copyright © Allison Ballard | Year Posted 2013
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