The Measure of Miles
2025 Poetry Marathon Mile 12 Contest // Sponsored by: Mark Toney
Contest Judged: 8/31/2025 8:56:00 AM
( 2nd Place )
Written: August 29, 2025
I did not come here to sprint.
I came to gather the pulse of the road,
to feel the gnaw of silence
against the bones of my resolve.
Each step is a revolution
against tiredness,
against the voices that murmur quit,
against the burden of what I once carried.
The horizon never hurries.
It waits, steady as a metronome,
marking time with the breath of dawn,
reminding me: endurance is a kind of prayer.
What is a marathon if not memory
unfolded across distance
the faces that hailed,
the hands that let go,
the griefs I refused to bury?
Still, I run.
Not because triumph is certain
but because the road demands witness.
Even the broke beg a compass.
I anchor my heart to the road,
woven mile after mile.
The finish is not some banner
it is the hour I see
fractures still hold weight.
And so I move,
one breath louder than surrender,
forty-two kilometers of fire
coursing through my veins.
If I falter, let it be forward.
If I fall, let it be on the line
where the road has already
turned me into flame.
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