I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more.

Someone from my past is coming back into my life. She's a woman that, for all intents and purposes, is my own personal Moby-Dick. I've destroyed myself in pursuit of her because of some obnoxious and fatal attraction to her that I've never truly understood. For a long time now I've maintained a policy of no contact so as to not get sucked back into the trap she is, but now she's back and I feel myself falling back down into that rabbit hole, except the bottom of this particular hole does not empty out into color and wonder, but into the deepest pit of darkness and despair I've ever experienced. And now she's back. I can't help myself around her, she stirs in me all the things I despise, nobility, motivation, and affection. I destroy myself trying to become this figure of stability and virtue so that I may feel as if I am the one that is right for her. But I'm not. I know I'm not, so I run. I'm running now, harder and faster than ever before from the only thing in the world that makes me feel as if I deserve something more than solitary nights and a cold, empty bed. I run so that when things come to a head and she tells me I could never be anything more than I am, I won't feel as if the floor of the world has been ripped out from under me. It's going to happen. I know it will. So I run. I'll run like I've never run before. No matter how much I think about her or want her. I run.