4x400 Metres

[Gerson]

The best thing about the start
Is its distance from the end.
I'll make any mistake
As long as there's time to make it again.
Find me stretching at the gates, grinning.
Shaking any hand, signing anything.
Baffled, squinted eyes watch me casually deleting
The memory of the pain
Felt at every prior ending.
The trick is unremembering-
Once you master that, you can do anything.
Approach old roads with new feet-
Kill yourself a thousand times, until
An overworked death notices the copywrite infringement.
Love could not survive if you could not forget
The name you gave it before-
All those people i was going to marry
Were just running a relay
With me as the lone spectator.
Unknowingly passing the baton of my love
Or whatever i deemed love to be.
With every lap it's more practical in nature
Yet no less heavy.
Damp from the tears, i'll leave it to fate;
He'll find me a nihilist
To run the home straight.

[Sassafras]

Life in a nutshell! So many truths, such great simplified imagery of getting through a life and it's many stages - sometimes repeated. Really enjoyed this!

[PhillipS]

Gerson, great metaphor, equating life to a relay race, full of possible mistakes and anxiety and failure; of serial lovers passing the baton of your love. Most evocative. Well worth the read.

PhillipS

[miharu]

I really really enjoying this, having run track and field in high school (although I was a sprinter, the 200 my specialty!) The line "The trick is unremembering-" seems so pivotal to this piece. A really lovely write.

[rupertpupkin]

Wonderful life metaphor and written with a sense of wisdom that comes from maturity. Loved it.

[miharu]

So glad to see this in the Spotlight! Beautiful metaphors and phrases in this piece.