Have you ever felt fear
So strong
It made you
stop
&
Turn
&
Run?

You’re running and hear
The heat
Whispering against your neck
Bleeding
Into your cheeks and the tips of your ears
Cherry stained
Anxiety
Cherries, red and fat and sickly sweet
Force themselves up your throat

You’re running in shoes
That aren’t meant for running
Down the sidewalk past the midnight hour
You make a biker stop and stare
He asks you something
But you’re too busy unzipping the air and
Flying
Through it
Trail of cherries behind you.

You’re running
Across the street
And you feel your hands fall off
And then come your toes
You lose an arm
And then it’s twin
Your whole torso
And hips
Left on the double yellow line
You’re just a head and legs
Cherries spilling like rubies
From your lips

You’re running
And running
and running
Until you only feel cherry seeds
On your tongue
Only seeds between your teeth
No more cherries
Your legs become red silk ribbon and you pick a tree as tall as heaven to
Collapse under.

You stopped running.
You wring the cherry juice out of your sweater
Lick it off your fingers,
Wipe it out of your eyes.
Your legs grow back into legs
And you collect your
pieces and parts
on the walk back.
Follow the trail of smushed squished cherries

You pick one up
put it in your mouth
Sour as battery acid
You swallow it whole
And go back to your essay
On rhetoric.

-spring sprung a leak, and there’s no stopping her