Anthesis of Sadness

I was running. Not towards something. But against. Without direction. Without purpose. Without escape. I was running like one tears away an infected strip of skin, like one tries to rid oneself of a limb too sick to be saved. I was running like one tries to escape a pain that one knows comes from within. There was no destination. No promise. Not even an illusion. Just that desperate, animal, compulsive movement, which looked more like a spasm than an act of will.

I was fleeing. Not a monster. Not a screaming shadow. Not a tangible threat.

I was fleeing a whisper.

A memory.

A light.

Something that had brushed against a part of me I thought had long been dead. Something that, by its simple existence, had awakened a possibility I no longer wanted to consider. A soft crack. A cruel opening.

And I was running to close it.

With steps. With breath. With denial.

And in that frantic escape, in that absurd rush towards nowhere, every step became a negation thrown to the sky like a silent cry, every leap a desperate protest, every breath a confession I tried not to hear. I was no longer moving forward — I was struggling against myself. Against what I refused to see. Against what, without violence, still wanted to believe in me.

My breath was turning rough, deep, broken. It slipped from my lungs like a betrayal, like a moan I would’ve rather held back, and I felt in every inhalation the weight of refusal. Even the air seemed to resist me, as if the world, in a sudden moment of clarity, refused to let me breathe fully. As if the mere act of living, of filling my lungs, had become too much. A stolen act. A privilege I no longer deserved.

My throat was burning. My chest seemed to crack with every stride. My whole body was becoming a field of active pain, an architecture of nerves on fire, but I refused to stop. I didn’t even allow myself to slow down.