Run

I decide to go for a run. I decide to go because when I undress in front of the mirror all I see is my rotund belly and bulbous thighs. I grab at them and pull, as though I am trying to rip off the chunks of flesh. This, in contrast to the tired, dry skin on my face, etched with deep lines like carvings in rock. It has not recovered from the eighteen months when it was not nourished, but elsewhere fat is sprouting. I lace my trainers tightly.

I don't know the time, I have stopped wearing a watch. I start running, and soon I am fleeing. It feels good: I haven't been able to run recently - thwarted by low blood pressure. Every rusty muscle is in movement, together, sliding back and forth in tandem and I feel slow but I feel fluid. I pull up from my core. I think I am the best runner you will see today because once I watched a tutorial on YouTube with Paula Radcliffe.

I run alongside the common, not on the grass; I prefer the solidity of the ground, the heaviness that rises up to meet my feet, boom, boom, boom. I feel warmth  in my thighs (pre-cursor to the pain) and I look down as though by giving them attention I can chide them along. They look big from this awkward perspective, and I speed up.

I follow the bend to the left and now I am running along the bottom of the common where the pavement is narrower and the traffic drives right alongside like animals at the zoo that come close to the glass for inspection. The pavement lies under the canopy of the trees and slowly, the sun slides up from behind the houses. Everything shines, coated in gold, in velvet. The summer sun is too loud and gauche and in winter it recoils and is replaced by steel, but the autumn sun...I could be indoors, and here we all are: the cars, their long shadows, the leaves and me, we are all in here, in this room made of light. It is so beautiful I want to cry, but it is too much, the thought of pouring out  and I keep things in, tightly in. I slap my trainers on the pavement and music pounds in my ears. I can hear it, but not the song; it is just rhythmic noise that keeps all else out. Boom boom boom.

I think about him; I think about lying on his chest and exploring the pictures that cover his skin, tracing them with my finger like I did to the fairytale books I read as a child. He is a breathing version: these stories became real and I tumbled into them. Now he is real and another world himself. I think of the flowers that bloom red, green and blue on his bicep, their hues dulled now they have seeped into skin.

I push myself round the final bend and I know if I keep running straight I shall be delivered home. Part of me wants to run forever. Sweat prickles under my arms, under the lurid pink bra that is now too tight. I remember buying it: it was too big, almost. Under the neon lights of the changing I rubbed my hard, taut belly, admiring the sinew and muscle, stripped of fat and almost bulging under the skin, rubbing it the same way expectant mothers rub their fecund bellies - soon a baby will appear, like Aladdin's genie! It makes me too sad. No babies. I keep running.

I am almost home. I could turn right and run down the hill to my front door but I decide to buy a card for the friend I am seeing tonight, to wish him congratulations for something he has done really, really well. He has sacrificed his time and his money and he has created something meaningful. He has sacrificed, and now he will contribute. He has been brave, and now I wish I was braver. I stoop down to pick up a paper and when I stand up again I realise my arm is exposed; there are people all around and I might as well have taken off every strip of clothing. I hold the paper up at an awkward angle to shield the bulge and scan the faces of people walking towards me for signs of staring - or revulsion, perhaps. I am past them in an instant so I shall never know. I feel absurd holding the paper like this, but I would rather be absurd than horrific. I think about going to the hospital; I am due a blood test.

I walk towards home carrying the paper, the card and the cash card holder I pulled out from my bra that is now moist with sweat. A song comes on my iPod, a favourite of mine: it is Maybe Tomorrow by The Stereophonics and I hear nothing but Kelly's raspy wail, all gravel and scotch and yearning. Life carries on around me but I can't hear it - it is like watching the footage to a silent movie. I think about taking a shower when I get home, and make-up, and the bins, and how the hell am I ever going to get a job,  and then I think tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow and another moment of now floats away.