Andi Van den Berge
Let me get you some water
Take it easy on yourself
Isn’t that what I’m here for, doc-
can you show me what I don’t know?
what it means to not find fault in perfection
like my mother- about my body
the way I chew
I’m grown now and I keep my distance
throwing medals backward
over my shoulder as I run.
They don’t belong to me.
I keep a distance between
people I need to dress in smiles
I need a place to rest but
I never could get my muscles not to twitch
So I kept sprinting.
Maybe if the distance were grand
even if you could catch up-
you’d have passed all my trophies
Only then you’d catch me and
you could be proud, but not me
One day I found where I dropped my baton
found purpose by mistake
I picked it up, I started running home
with an urgency of something
I needed to survive.
I got there.
I fell to my knees
The little girl stared back at me
And I asked for what we needed-
can I give you a hug?
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