Pavement

It starts with a heartbeat.

Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump

This is the pounding you're used to.

It's mutual need fueled by

hot and quivering thighs

in sync with pumping arms.

Breath,

torn in gasps by the little death of achievement,

rants ragged in protest.

You will never finish this marathon life

without sparking fire-fomenting rebellion

inside every mitochondrial membrane.

That heartbeat? It gets frenetic

Tha-thumptha-thumptha-thumptha-thump

amped up on adrenaline and cortisol.

gotta go, gotta finish, gotta win, gotta love

mariposa stomachs doing backflips and barrel rolls

while the mind surges upward into an abyss.

Evolution is an arms race.

Combine and separate;

adapt to every shitty hand life throws your way

and overcome.

This, this was never a prurient goal,

so wipe the sweat from your brow.

Feel the heat of the afterglow,

the  flush of accomplishment.

Sit up straight.

Relax your jaw.

Wash yourself of the salted remnants

of an hour well spent

Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump

It ends with a heartbeat

The above piece was my submission to Labyrinth, the feminist and literary arts journal of Western Washington University.