Chasing your ghost

To The Lady on the Train,

You don't know this, and perhaps you shouldn't. But whenever I run, I carry you with me. Once the aches and pains of pounding feet into pavement has been masked by the euphoric release of endorphins, dopamine, and adrenalin you come drifting into focus. Once the punishment turns to pleasure, you are there. 

And as the kilometers roll by under my feet, I try to recall the slope of your shoulders and the patterns of freckles that I once could draw with my fingertips. I recall the softness of your skin and the hardness of the muscle and bone below the surface and I drift into that same wonderment of the impossible contradictions that you are.

I try to remember the arch of your back, roundness of your backside, and the straight lines of your limbs, the line of your jaw, and your small bowtie mouth. I run through the mists of memory and time to relive the feel of your curls on my cheek, the sound of your sigh in my ear, and see the bright darkness of your eyes. Running, I can recall the scent of your perfume and your skin. And I am no longer running but back in a room with the sun slanting in across white sheets and I am consumed by the way you fill me up.

And there are not enough kilometers, not enough roads or trails, not any distance possible that would be enough to set you down. I carry you with me in this running dream knowing that once I stop it will slide from my grasp like trying to hold sand. But there is always the next run and a further distance. It is the best reason to keep running; it is the reward for the chase.

The Man in the Station