When Derek Redmond tore his hamstring and I stopped avoiding the truth, 30 years apart
from truth, we snapped the string
whose tension kept us upright,
our knees struck floor
like a gavel sealing fate,
genuflecting the new life
who met us on the way down
You must have known, too,
collapsing is both a prayer
to the next version of yourself
and a surrender to the life
you chased but wasn’t yours
to catch, you caught, instead,
yourself kneeling on shards
of windows you watched
tomorrow’s hopes through
After understanding bled
into carpet trash cans
I heard what to do next
in the language of your dad
holding his son’s crying face
like a kickstand on a motorcycle.
He came to you that day
the way I learned that day,
30 years later, how to come
running out of the stands
for myself
The Olympic records state
you didn’t finish the race,
but records neglect to show
the victory of losing
what wasn’t ours to keep
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