The Running Man

He runs darting on
His feet weighted down by the sleet
He runs and I wonder why?

I wonder how he does it
How he continues on
past the brink
reinvents his own new precipice

I saw him once outside his limbs lithe and bold

I longed to reach out to him
To envelope his frigid limbs inside my warm alcove
Where he might thaw out
Where he might know respite
But still on he ran

He ran like a machine as one does on a treadmill
An automaton he seemed less
Human to me now
His lips were a deep purple
The sickly veins within then distended by the cold

Still he ran
He ran
However, as he ran on
No longer did this man carry my sympathy

I knew his lethargy and his foolhardy effort for what it was
The tunnel vision
The singularity of his pursuit of the same goal
It was eroding away
The artifice
I realised when I saw him now
His life had but one trajectory

So the man ran
He and ran I lost my appetite for him
I ate my supper and my dinner meal
Then came breakfast
I spoke of the man with an acquaintance
I laughed as I described his running, one step in front of the other
Then I became too ashamed to speak of it
Because it all sounded so absurd

In the end I shuttered my blinds
I had a sneaking suspicion as I did
That the man was still there
But he had already occupied my thoughts
Far too long
I let the man go
"May he drown in ice" I recited
Alone to myself.