All day inside with her kids,
windows fogging with steam. My sister comes home, and
I must leave, I must, and I do. Put on my sneakers and
bound down the stairs to a damp dark outdoors.
The cars and traffic lights and the people glisten, glide by and I'm running, moving, slick with rain and sweat. Breathing, panting, storming in the streets with an energy I didn't know I possessed.
The darkness twisting away in corners, puddles and gutters and leering piles of wet leaves. A left, a right, wherever the signals are green, the path of least resistance, as long as I don't stop. The rain slackens, renews with vigor, tapers off again. The streets twine and curve away from me, my thoughts in a jumble and spilling out.
Slick with rain and tears, I keep running, panting, talking aloud. Myself on a rainy night and tired as hell and sick of it all, further and further away from home.