The Body's Answer

I was fast once. That was real.

The kind of fast that made you feel

like the world was moving slow,

like nothing could say no

to the thing you were trying to do.

My coach said, You'll go places.

Said it twice. I believed him.

Said my times were proof

of something more than speed—

they were proof I mattered.

Now I'm thirty feet into a sprint

and my knees decide I'm finished.

Just like that. Just finished.

My lungs burn like they're lying.

My legs burn like they're dying.

I limped onto the bus

and caught my face in the window.

Red. Desperate. Done.

The woman next to me

didn't even look.

Didn't know what she was seeing—

a girl who used to run,

a girl who now can't.

The distance between them

is shorter than it should be.

Some mornings I wake up

and my knees are fine,

and I think maybe yesterday was a fluke.

But then I try again

and they say no

in that same old voice

that sounds like getting older,

that sounds like letting go,

that sounds like everything

I was

being taken slow.