Vol 13, Num 8 :: 2014.04.18 — 2014.05.01
What would it be like to live
without the critic, The Accuser?
I understand this, the desire
to talk smack back to the Devil,
to push him aside, to jog
past him, passing him, leaving him
behind to eat dust
in some allegorical psycho-spiritual Ironman,
to look back upon your opponent as he wilts;
his eyes, surprised to see
that you have overtaken him.
And then, the adrenaline.
Now you run because you fear
he is catching up, he is right
behind you.
Now you run as if pursued,
not to win or lose,
you run so that you may continue running.
And somehow, this is worse than bedding
the enemy, supping with the adversary;
this running is somehow harder, more consuming
than simply surrendering to old Lucifer’s pestering
his convincing that you are irreparably broken
— or worse, unforgiven, or still worse, forgotten.
It is somehow easier to let him prattle on
in the vacuum of your mind than to run
run run run run
heart in throat,
toward a future intoxicating and unknowable;
unguided, unmoored in a Floridian Everglade; alone, paranoid in a Louisianan Bayou.
But you do it because, God
you already started running; and Jeez —
your hamstrings are tight anyway,
and you paid good money for these running shoes
and you told yourself you’d do this thing, and Man:
what have you got to lose
but yourself, and Satan,
which are really the same thing
at least when it comes down to it
at the finish line,
though there is no finish line
though it is finished.
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