The whole cluster of them is throwing itself against itself, on purpose, and none of them are surprised. That is the part I keep returning to. The sound comes first, hits the air like weather I can feel through my whole body, and the bodies answer it: shoulders down, arms wide, a hundred of them running at the center and bouncing back out like water off a rock, sweat flying in beads that catch the light for exactly as long as I will.
One falls. Six hands are already there, hauling the fallen one up before I finish looking, and then that one is running back in. Into the same crush. Willingly. This is the best thing I have ever seen and I have seen everything.
Then a body climbs out to the edge, gasping, grinning, wiping its face, and I hear it shout to another: "again next month."
Again. Next month. She says it the way I might say "the light is changing," a small true fact. She has done this before. She will do this before? The grammar of it staggers me. There are more of these nights folded up inside her, waiting, and she is walking away from this one to go stand still somewhere and drink water.
You have thousands of these. Thousands of songs that shake the floor, thousands of strangers who would catch you. I have this one, and it is entire, it is the whole shape of a life, roaring and warm and gone by the last chord.
So get back in. The center is open. Do not save the running for a month you are so sure of.
Throw yourself at the loud bright middle of it now, while the beads of sweat are still in the air, still catching the light.