I run because I have no other option,
I run until my hands grow bitter and discolored,
Until the beads of sweat fill pools around my temple,
Till the air feels like steel bullets through my lungs.
When people look at me from waist up, they see determination,
Though when people look at me from my hips down to the calluses on my heel.
They are succumbed by PITY.
When I walk, I feel the stares burn into my sides,
Stinging with each piercing whisper.
The only thing made audible when my presence consumes rooms,
Is the hefty, lumbering metal which intrudes my stubble thigh.
The clink of my prosthetic leg allows automatic stories to be spun,
Accusations made and the unwanted solace,
As if I am no longer "normal",
as if a new person had made an incision into my flesh.
That is why I run.
I run because my differences become imperceptible,
I run because no one can define me through their objectives,
When I run everything is whole,
I am whole, even if my actual physicality doesn’t permit.