Running Not Walking

I head out in the morning; just before sunset.
My alarm clock will call out at 5 o'clock sharp,
But there will be no answer.
Just the echoing cries of a restless baby.

The air is cool against my skin.
I tug at my beanie; letting it fall just before my neck.
My ears are red and hurting from the cold.

I don't mind.
This is what I want.

I feel like I deserve to be chilled; chilled to the bone.
As if this is fair punishment for laying just moments ago in my bed of tranquility.
And in a few hours my world that I have left behind will be jolted one-by-one will the same shock of panic.
Slowly the waves of anger, denial, and disbelief will swallow them up.
Hopefully, not pulling them under.

I am not trying to fit in.
I run alone.

No one will see me except for the occasional homeless person sleeping in the playground tunnels.

As I pass by the many trees,
I have time; time enough to feel like the moment that I have to go out and face the world doesn't exist.

The gravel splashes away as my feet glide on the unpaved roads; roads of an uncertain future.

I stumble a pone an elderly man having his morning coffee.
He is taking in this daily dose of tragic times; newspaper grim reapers.

Nothing ever changes.
But something inside me will never be the same.
These are the moments I live for.

I'll sit on a bench and pull my knees to my chest.
Because sometimes you have to realize that it is OK to rest.

Feathers float in the air; a trail to a mystery.
A duck quacks at my presence;
It cuts thru the mists of the morning like a rooster signaling the sun's timely arrival.  

The pale moon fades away once more,
As my frog prince announces he is near.

The day is just beginning; walking into the fields of grey.
There is no place I'd rather be than here,
This place,
This day.

No one should have told me it was this easy,
..This easy to run away.