i’ve dreamed like a stallion but i’ve never ran like one. bolting across prairies and open fields with open arms and feet clomping on the grass. and it’s unfair because you crawled up the beaches and never made a peep and you drove for so long that you started to hate your feet. you couldn’t have chosen to be free like me. storms dictated your schedule i can chase my tailbone endlessly in the eclipse of the waking sun and the pouring rain. you’ve missed your family so your father died, and your mother only has one kidney at least she’s alive? you got robbed of your dignity. bystanders tell you to loosen up your knees. you flail when it’s time to go to sleep, something i have taken for granted since i was thirteen. you have possibly dreamed like a stallion, but you never got to believe. you’ve begged God to just let you jump from the empire state building at six fifteen for some strange reason. have you ran like a stallion? with your mouth agape your lips pursing your armpits sweating? have you dashed through farmlands and markets and cornfields? feeling the gatekeeper in your chest start cussing and blurting out words you haven’t heard since the day your brother slapped your sister? i’ve dreamed like a stallion. wild, free, and intense. i dreamed i would escape into the sunset, bathing in its rays spread all over the place. and one day, i hope to run like a stallion with no worries, just the starlight on my back and thunder crackling in my veins. and one day, i hope you do the same thing.
war is hardest on the men that didn’t create it. 8/18/22