I
“Walk,” the Doctor said “Walk.”
Burn off the fat
Burn off the calories
Burn off the stress
If you want to see your Eighties!
“Walk,” my wife said “Walk.”
They burn you without promotion
They burn you with too much work
They burn you with your salary
Let them screw some other jerk!
“Walk,” my friend said “Walk.”
If the passion’s burned away
The respect’s burned out
The Oxygen’s burned up
Drop that woman, just walk out.
II
And so I walk.
Through a park
Through a tunnel in my mind
Where past needs
present issues
and future dreams collide.
And so I walk
With a throbbing brain
With a burning soul
I feel my blood
my muscles
my body heat lose control.
And so I walk
Stumbling over rocks
Stumbling over roots
Oblivious to the park
the people
and the trees I brush through.
III
There’s a pain on my cheek
Where a branch slapped my head.
I touch it, expecting to feel my hot blood,
Only to find it cool instead.
Some idiot on a bike
Bumps his handle bars into my thigh.
The pain is sharp as I stumble aside
And he keeps riding by.
And the I stumble over something
I fall, my ankle twisted and hurt.
I look at the damn thing that tripped me,
A convulsing bird lying in the dirt.