\ The Second is Sometimes Old

I am totally going to stop believing in evolution until I start seeing better results.

It is less tiring, and now I am addicted, and I flush with anger when my routine is interrupted, even if by responsibilities that I know good and well are my own. But at mile 5 the red madrona bark blends in with the yellow alder leaves, the slate and river rock, the loam and mulch, and it is a marbled path, the illusion of running atop aspic, and oh, if I haven't believed in an afterlife until now, at least I am hung up on this one.

I run until I hit the wall on Saturdays, and on Mondays run a mile as fast as I can. On Wednesdays I used to try to strike a balance, but balked when I realized the metaphor. Now I just try to get over the hump.

I ran my mile up two hills, and I just know I could go faster, although I suppose I could slow down a bit and still arrive at the same time, and back at the house I am on my knees coughing primordial days, depths of my lungs not dredged since my witless years. It is like a deep river down there. What is the opposite of tears? It is a river of dust and tobacco and wrongs more imagined than imaginary.

I write onto my hand with a magic marker, 'I am my own wasted talent.' It is my deadly slogan. But i prefer to imagine myself a recycler of limited potential. I re-absorb every good idea, put words down on paper, then suck them back in to be re-used later on. I am full of my own possibilities.

I can no longer get by on plotting my revenge, and it is to the point where i have given up on making peace, and instead of becoming that person who constantly talks out his issues, I am that person who always seems to be rolling his eyes and shaking his head. I am still allowed the luxury of pinching myself to take my mind of the reality of boring conversation.

I am far too busy imagining my alterego floating upon rainclouds from adventure to adventure, and have little time to reproduce this idyll for my co-respondents, dragging on my personal amusements. The imaginary me is angry and intense and constantly tripping over his own callousness, and yet somehow adored all the more so for it. The real me is trying to close the gap, so that I can catch up with the next runner in line. Even from way back here I can tell, whoa, she is something else.

And she is.