Stain the sand
with your bloody footprints.
Run—
until the sand pierces your skin.
Run.
Do not stop,
even if it becomes your flesh.
Chase your goal.
Circle the earth
until you return
to where it all began.
In the end,
it will not matter
that you nearly died for it.
What will matter
is that you made it.
You made it.
But the pain you carried—
no one will understand.
Some kept running and gave up.
It was not simple.
They did not stop because they could;
they stopped because their legs failed.
Some died,
singing their dreams like lullabies
to an empty night.
The one who didn't give up
reached the edge of his square of land—
a cliff high enough
to crush the bones,
Into a memory no one will remember.
Beyond it, the ocean roared,
a storm that would not end.
Could he return?
The creature did not want to.
So he jumped—
from that terrible height.
Some broke on the rocks below;
their bodies scattered and final beneath the tide.
Some vanished into the water's hungry mouth, carried by currents that forget names.
Only the lucky
reached their dream—
With a few scars.
"Only the lucky
reached their dream—
With a few scars."