"Pain"

If you're reading this on or around the date it was published, then you, like me, are likely still shocked, disturbed and a little frightened at the senseless bombing that occurred this week at the Boston Marathon. 

Perhaps it makes me unprofessional, but I've been unable to get it off of my mind. I'm not one of those writers/entertainers/ whatever-the-hell-I-am that's capable of just pushing past a tragedy like this and soldiering on. Some can, I cannot. 

So, I do what I've done ever since I was old enough to hold a pencil; when life gets hard and painful and confusing, I create. I won't call this poetry, since I've always written crappy poetry. But as a runner and a human being I had to get this off my chest.

"Pain"
Aaron Matthew Smith
17 April 2013

It's the largest hill I've ever seen. Pain is shooting through my sides, my knees, my ankles and my hips. I'm a moving, sweating, grimacing mountain of pain. 
I go on. 
Soon I can't even hear my footsteps on the concrete anymore. Each breath makes my lungs burn, as if the air is made of fire and ash. 
Nowhere to go but forward, I go on. 
I push against the hill with every muscle in my body. All my blood, flesh and bone beg for me to stop, to give up and let the hill win. 
Unable now to turn back, I go on. 
The summit is in sight. It's been in sight from the beginning. My brain knows its getting closer, but the pain swears its farther away than ever. 
The pain is wrong. I go on.  
My body seems to reach the top well before the pain does, as if I'd been dragging it behind me the whole way. The pain had given up. I'd been doing all the work. 
I set my eyes on the next hill and I go on.