A jagged stone forms inside my left calf,
scrapes muscle fibers from bone with every step.
I feel for trickling blood beneath my skin.
The hill rises before me, indifferent.
Though the phone strapped to my arm reads 7:31,
it is still Kentucky in late June.
Every gasp streams stagnant water down my throat
into my lungs.
I collapse my chest to exhale,
expel the fluid like profanity.
Mocking now, the hill rises on.
My chin drops,
flattens my wet shirt against my chest.
I narrow my vision,
force my feet to churn–
they are not part of my body,
not part of the swelling pain.
Then, coming up on my right,
I hear my twenty-nine-year-old self,
a decade my junior.
He’s breathing heavily,
behind me now,
fading,
easing,
relenting
to a walk.
-Jason McKinley Williams
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