It’s dark. I’m running. The branches are cold and they cut into my bare arms as I push past them. My clothes are full of thorns and it’s starting to rain. I can feel the first drops on my face
I sprint through a clearing, the moisture from the long grass soaking my shoes. My heart cries out as I reach the edge and leap, back into the forest. It’s safe here, a mild solace, a comfort. It holds me, shields me from sight.
But it is not I that this forest shields from the eyes, really the other way around. It is the world that is shielded from me. For if I lay my eyes upon a mere crumb of it, I would inevitably destroy it, or myself, most likely the latter.
I run. I run a long time. I watch the moon sail across the night sky, peaking through the clouds and flashing through the branches. My legs are burning, my lungs starving for air.
I run to get nowhere, but somewhere in my mind. I’m running from nothing, but something in my mind. It is a thought, a feeling, an emotion, or the lack of. It haunts my mind, nips at my heels, pulls at my heart.
I run in anger, in frustration, I run in fear. I run in a flurry of footsteps across uneven ground, frozen and cold.
Up ahead, through the trees I see a land that no other sees, a world of magic and imagination that pours from the minds of writers and poets alike. A place where good always prevails and in times of hardship, everyone agrees that the most important things in the world is each other.
It’s a kind of place that children dream about, their mind tugging at innocent, happy thoughts of their un-jaded youth. It’s where every blade of grass is soft, green and always the perfect length to play hide and go seek and if you want snow, you’ll find it on top of a mountain that wasn’t so hard to climb after all.
That’s the place that I strive for, the place I want to get to. I need to get to. I can’t stand this world of material possessions where we would rather live comfortably than help others out of their fear-driven, spirit-diminishing lives.
Where those who dare to test things and use their minds and creativity to make this world just a little better are looked down on a s vain dreamers. A world my soul gets smothered by.
But no matter how hard I try, no matter how fast I run, how much I push myself, how far I go. It’s not there. It’s not there and it never will be.
It’s hard to believe that something that can seem so real to me, so real to more than me is nothing. And I can not imagine such a thought.
Yet still I try. I run with vacant prayer that maybe there is a slice of a ray of hope that a world even minutely similar to that of which I dream, of which I see ahead, exists, that a door or even a window of opportunity may arise at the precise instant that I am running into it to be transported away. And I’ll be the third of all humanity to enter such a place.
I know that I will be running, in the end, to no prevail. But the thought of the world that lay in front and behind me, all around me, keeps me going.
My hope is slight, my determination fading. And still I run.
Author notes
Written November 15th, 2004
A contest entry
- For Anyone Who Wants to Enter by dragondancer.
300 points, ended December 7, 2004, 20 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 8 of 8
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okay thanks for the critique. I love when people ACTUALLY critique things. This isn't one of my best, I mean I don't think I will do anything real with it. could you, perhaps critique some of my other peices of writing. i mean you actully know what you're talking about. if you agree, IM me and I'll tell you which ones I would like you to read. I could offer a trade? You know? thanks a lot. oh and what did you mean aboout "regular knack" I don't usually write poetry, mainly stories...
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No do it. REally. Just do it.
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You don't want me to comment critically on this, I can assure you.
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Can't be Accepted until you tell me why
Very well writting short story. I had hopes of finding writters out there with more than just the regular knack for poetry. Indeed, I seem to have found at least one such person. Anyway, on to my critical review...don't feel diminished because of anything I say, mind you...
In the beginning of this piece, you describe slightly was is going on even before you take in the whole picture of the scene. You meantions things such as bare arms being cut and throns in your clothes. This never amounts to anything later on. One of the best things about a good storyteller is bringing everything together at the end in some fashion that leaves no room for the reader to question their tale...well, besides in its fictional basis.
You have a strange sense of stream of consciousness writting. Most of your paragraphs are short and seem to give a astral plane view of the thoughts from inside a person. Grammatically speaking, starting a sentence with the word "but" is actually a sort of taboo...especially for an English Major like me...though I don't always follow it, I try not to use conjunction words at the beginning of a sentence. They are mainly to attatch two sentences together.
Instead of using commas at every pause, try using other grammatical punctuations. Things like periods or semicolons are a good choice. You can also use dashes and parparenthesis.
Another thing to look at in this tale is that you claim to see the "land that no other sees." Later you say it's not there. This is something that must be fixed. To stated something is and then isn't is okay in poetry because it gives a different feel to the piece, but in regular stories, it is a weaker point where people can jab and complain.
Near the end, you say "I'll be the third of all humanity." Perhaps stating what the other two entering there were would help, because this line actually just confuses me. You write that you know that there is no hope, but you try to anyway. It's interesting. Perhaps it is because I must disect every work I have...or maybed it's because I am a harsh reader, but explaining why you keep running would be a good help in this piece. In other words, you should explain why this world around you makes you want to keep going. I can tell that it smothers and looks down upon you and other artist, but the question is, why.
The final problem is that I can not see how this piece fits into the genres you have chosen. I would appreciate an explaination in either comment or IM so that I may start to consider your peice for the contest. (I just want to know why it's in these genres)
Anyway. That's my pre-judging critique. Do as you will with it, but I shall read this again come the contest's end. Good luck! -
cccccoooooooolllllllll but I would feel weird doing that - besides I live in a town with one newspaper... so I don't think it will make that much of a difference.
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The longer you run the bigger the diffrence you make.You should send this to a news paper around the holidays,maybe it will open the eyes of some of those who live to comfortably and secure in their own worlds not seeing the lives around them.You are an excellent writer and this was clear and free flowing throughout.Awesome job on this
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Thanks. I wrote it at work. I find the best writing from me comes when I don't want to be somewhere and writing is my only escape. i quite that job though. And i put my story through the laundry cause it was in my work pants pocket. Curses.
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And still [you] run, this is very well written, like the way it trails along as you go through these moments and thoughts by running and that which you strive for which is not really there, to embrace that hope of something someplace where a door or window of opportunity can be. I enjoyed reading this!!
Have a greater day!
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