sunblink

i’ve been running for too long.
my feet pound against the ground. i feel they are making craters every time i make contact with the asphalt.
step breathe step breathe step breathe step breathe
it’s frigid, so my breath is noticeable with every icy plume that escapes my mouth, but my body is hot and feverish despite the extreme chill. it’s painful and excruciating, my lungs burning, lined with ice after running for so long in such cold, but i suppose that’s why i’m doing it in the first place.
it’s difficult to breathe anymore, at least properly. the air is too cold. some days my breath becomes too quick, in a panic to get oxygen, and i get lightheaded from too many rapid breaths.
for weeks, i’ve also been exhausted. it’s impossible to run so much and not be entirely spent. sleep isn’t sufficient for me anymore. it doesn’t satiate the need i have for rest. so i run and i run and i run because it’s all i know anymore, but it only continues to make me more tired.
no one ever runs with me. it’s always a solitary ritual. i pass houses and i see people inside but they never come out and i never stop to say hello, either. it’s always just me.
step breathe step breathe step breathe step breathe
it’s often that i want to stop running. i’ve been doing it for too long and i’m always alone and i’m always tired and it’s always too cold but too hot and there’s never enough air — and it’s always as silent as a monastery and all i can hear are my own thoughts and my own breaths.
i am always surrounded by empty fields in between the houses. the crops have long since been harvested and it is just me in the openness of the world, alone but too accompanied by loneliness and the fog coming from my lungs.
i’m running towards a vision i see in the distance. i see it faintly, every day when i run. some days it’s clearer than others but it’s always out of reach. i know it’s not real, just as it hasn’t been real every single day for so many days. but i still want it. it’s a beacon of hope to me after all this time running.
the mirage is me. it’s me, long ago, before, when i didn’t feel this way.
when i didn’t feel so alone. when it wasn’t so cold. when i knew how to breathe correctly. when my greatest enemy wasn’t my own mind. i ache to reach her, to reach that me. to me, it would be like the miracle of finding a spring of cool, clean water after years in the desert.
step breathe step breathe step breathe step breathe
i run, i sprint, i nearly fly down the road, hoping every day that i’ll make it to her and that she won’t always be this far out of reach.
i lay on my bed and practice breathing, as i do every night before trying to sleep. i imagine that i can run and escape the prison that is my head and find her, the joyful person that used to be me. i try to push away the thought that she can’t ever be reached and that i’ll never make it to her, no matter how long and fast i run. i see her every day, far off, perhaps, but she’s there.
so every night, i pray i can run from this and i yearn for the day that i can reach that mirage so that i can finally stop chasing something so fleeting and so abstract. i’m sure once i arrive, my body will shake and my muscles will give out and i’ll probably collapse, but i also think i’ll smile and that it’ll be warm again. finally.
*****
inspired by utican, a song by novo amor
