The Poetry Marathon

200 miles passed, and 200 to go.
Just enough gas to hit the next nowhere town
And drink, drink up to your fill.
It’s a bright day, and when you stop
The wind is a brisk friend whipping excitedly around your legs,
Waking you up, wondering if you remember it.

Sure. You remember long days of walking,
Merciless weather drumming the knowledge
That all you are is meat, and all you will ever be;
Or your bones do, your genes,
Passed down Lamarckian from ages past.
You let your friend go,
Knowing it could once again be foe.

Each waystation passes like clouds in the night,
Mile after mile after endless mile.
Your car eats them up with the crankiest purr,
Hungering, hungering ever for more.

Camera phones out, brandished like weaponry
Pepper the streets around the crime
As if the threat of observation were enough
To stop a violent perpetrator in their tracks,
Quell the wave of the power trip from washing
Over the bulletproof vest, pressed uniform, holstered gun;
And as if the promise of accountability could be distilled
Into one solitary square of communication, freedom.

One knows that in a world where the only power we possess
Is to know what we alone saw and heard and did,
So that when the forces of “are you sure?” and “surely not” –
Bickering and backstabbing, secondguessing and gaslighting –
Crash upon you from an attorney’s confident voice, creating doubt
For everything you do not have clear as solid rock:

In the knowledge of that future time,
All one can do is watch.

Hi there! My name is Zoe, and this is going to be my first half-marathon. I’m looking forward to this, sounds like a lot of fun!