Have you ever run so fast down a wave of asphalt that you feel your breath catch up to you from behind?

Smacking into your back like a riptide at noon, the ocean striking like you were out past her curfew.

In the movies they catapult themselves from the crest and into a sun kissed embrace, those prettier than I.

I’d like to think of you on that shoreline waiting for my feet to hit 55 before our ribcages collide. Unfortunately, I left my room and board up north.

Where the ocean coughs up sunrises for the mountains and the city sleeps off a perpetual hangover.

Years of smoking and not smoking and smoking and not smoking won’t allow me to chase those swells. My lungs will never be like hers.

Thus, I will run like the devil in the opposite direction. Away from every advance even when your face is permanently scarred into my arm.

No matter if I build Oprah’s million dollar sandcastle, in the end, my greatest work of art will be not falling in love with you.

But I wouldn’t mind a kiss goodbye.