dash

Kinetic energy toasts inside soles,

temperature rising to prototype

levels. Outside billows smoke and

suffocation. Charles knows what’s best

most times, but today- breeze is a curse.

It doesn’t happen immediately.

Rush adrenaline or perhaps a cocktail of 

caffeine and agony, either way,

speed increases, pushing, pulling,

further away from a despised sanctuary. 

But when it does-

Fibers stretched, balls of feet strain under

the impact of crashing concrete. An urban

nightmare reels its head during days like these. Then,

instinct arrives, eyes widen, pupils dilate.

The long-awaited pause between torture and indifference.

Some live for it, some die for it- the limbo of tolerance.

But today disturbed tranquility replaces space occupying

the brain. Hunched over entrance through the back-door,

 it leans up against the membranes of mind, smoldering, and says,

“Smile, you’re not on camera- and while you’re at it, bring it home.”

- JW