Ascending the Mount

Illustrated by Samantha Fulton. 

Between two ears
rests a brain,
and to the head
up pumps a heart.

Running into the wind,
I tell myself that this is all
there is —
that this is all 

I must overcome.
But the gradient
argues otherwise,
as my nail-dry skull 

hammers grey matter
starved of growth and air,
commanding a body politic laid open
and a chest beaten bare.

In my side, the muscle
begins its slow give,
tendons start to split,
and my matchstick ankles cave.

Somewhere in this empty head
I hear the rallying cry,
a dormant instinct demanding
that now I must do, or die.

Between this and the rough slap
of my soles on sloping tarmac,
I find comfort in the certainty
that I am doing all I can.

A final corner is slipping
quickly from my grasp.
An eye turns, the mouth burns,
then my lungs fall limp and flat.

I pause here, bend over-
take in the lighter patch of leaves
curving up the road along with me,
a rippling red carpet
tapering off at the peak.

An obelisk is raised above my head,
recording those who have valiantly done
what they did, and now are dead.

Kicking myself up and forward,
I take the curve slowly,
eyeballing the road's edge
and the slight drop off to my right.

With great strength,
pistoning the white-hot heat
of the cage in my middle,

I take the last turn.
Then the breakout from the trees,
opening up sky and nothing else
to tilt my jagged edge
from the straight path in front of me.

The incline over,
my legs unloose and I skim
carelessly over open ground,
revelling in this sudden shot
of relief,
careening into bitter ice bolts
burning flatly through the dawn.

This is life as it should be,
I think- all traces of arrogance
cut free, swept off in the breeze.
Nothing left but me
powering forward, climbing under
my own steam.

Slowly, I carry on, back on the flat.