running away
strengthens my legs.

and so does planting
my feet firmly on the ground

after a fresh lie—

trade the volleyball practice
for physics textbooks

and i grow exponentially
happier.

grow exponentially freer,
i guess somewhere along the line

i decided

i preferred calculations
To spiking *****.

is all
really, i guess the court

instilled in me a queer
fear, that of

bears clawing shut a cage,
i prisoner, appeaser,

so I played.

but the longer I stayed
The more i prayed,

prayers of numbers,
velocities, angles,

and realized that
maybe the running

was more a way to measure
my footsteps

than to play less

a game.