August 25, 2005
The metaphor found in long distance running; antebellum
I slowly fell to the sand.
I came to rest like i was a cannonball that finally lost all inertia. like i had been shot from a cold iron barrel with a mighty blast on some explosive battlefield and had sailed through the fight and the smoke and the action, but never hit my mark. I felt like i instead soared through it all and landed in some grassy field and slowly rolled to a stop in some lonely and quiet pasture in the hazy afternoon sun near the Mason-Dixon line. I laid there, heart pounding through my neck. I laid there, like a cannonball all out of motion. I laid there like a forgotten detail, edited out of someone's history book, an out of date war relic that never served it's purpose.
I looked straight up at the sky until i lost east from west, top from bottom, love from hate. The battle was over. I wondered what i had accomplished. I wondered what was won, what was lost. I wondered how much energy i had burned to create so much momentum, to go such a distance, and who came to end up lying like a cannonball that neither hurt nor helped either side in a civil war.